Eric Black Inkhttp://www.minnpost.com/department/30833/rss.xml
enTracking turnout: Older voters overwhelm mayoral elections in St. Paul and other citieshttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/07/tracking-turnout-older-voters-overwhelm-mayoral-elections-st-paul-and-other-c
<p dir="ltr">Question: Who votes for mayor?</p><p dir="ltr">Answer: Old people, but not even very many of those.</p><p dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.knightfoundation.org/blogs/knightblog/2015/7/28/portland-state-study-seniors-much-more-likely-cast-ballots-young-votes/">A new study titled “Who Votes for Mayor?”</a> by Portland (Oregon) State University’s Population Research Center analyzed mayoral elections in several U.S. cities, including St. Paul, and came to a truly depressing but not so very surprising conclusion:</p><p dir="ltr">In all the cities combined, the turnout percentage of registered voters age 65 and older was <em>10 times higher</em> for those age 18-34.</p><p dir="ltr">Ten times. Oy. We’re talking about the rate, not the number of voters, so it doesn’t matter whether there are more younger or older voters registered. It’s just whether they took the trouble to vote. The older voters were 10 times more likely to take the trouble.</p><p dir="ltr">But wait, it gets worse. Since the older voters were also twice as likely as the younger ones to even be registered to vote, the participation rate of <em>eligible</em> voters over 60 was <em>20 times higher</em> than for the 18-34 year olds.</p><p dir="ltr">Twenty times. That’s a big number. And a bad number.</p><p dir="ltr">In St. Paul in 2013, the median age of the voting age population was 40.8 years old. But the median age of those who voted was 57 years old.</p><p dir="ltr">The four cities studied were Charlotte, Detroit, Portland and St. Paul. The gap between the median age of the eligible voters vs. actual votes in St. Paul was the highest of any of the cities studied.</p><p dir="ltr">In 2013 in St. Paul, people 65 or older made up just 11.9 percent of all eligible voters but produced 32.4 percent of all votes in that year’s election. People 18-34 years old made up 41.1 percent of the voting eligible population, but cast just 11.8 percent of the votes.</p><p dir="ltr">As you might surmise, voting behavior also varies greatly by economic status. Jason Jurjevich, one of the scholars who worked on the study, pointed me to a study of neighborhoods that the group calls “voting deserts,” census tracts in which the level of voter participation was less than 50 percent of the citywide average. In St. Paul at the time of the 2013 election, there were 20 such tracts in which 23.4 percent of the city’s voting-age population lived. That percentage was considerably higher than the other three cities in the survey.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Some excuses</h4><p dir="ltr">Some excuses can be made for St. Paul. For example, the mayoral election in 2013 was barely contested, with incumbent Mayor Chris Coleman cruising to reelection with 78 percent of the vote. (But all the elective municipal offices were on the ballot as well.) The 2013 election was the first time St. Paul used ranked-choice voting. Portland, which had a much, much higher turnout, was the only one of the four cities studied to hold its city election 2012, so it coincided with the big presidential election.</p><p dir="ltr">Another point in favor of St. Paul compared to the other three cities studied: That statistic above that said older registered voters were 10 times more likely to vote than younger registered voters was a blended number for all four cities studied. St. Paul’s ratio was just 7.7 times. Still troubling, but the best of the four cities studied.</p><p dir="ltr">But all of these potential excuses and silver linings are off the main point.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Low by world standards</h4><p dir="ltr">Voter turnout in U.S. elections is a bit of ongoing scandal (although it isn’t often treated as such). Our country is supposed to be the leader and promoter of world democracies, but the rate of voter participation is extremely low by world standards.</p><p dir="ltr">A year ago, when I wrote <a href="http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/09/why-do-so-few-citizens-participate-our-democracy">a series about the poor performance of U.S. democracy</a>, I quoted a textbook that studied the percentage of voters who turned out in 31 democracies all over the world. The U.S. turnout of 57 percent ranked 29th on that list, and that is doing our system the great kindness of scoring only the quadrennial presidential election, which is the peak of U.S. voter turnout.</p><p dir="ltr">This study is at the other end of the spectrum. Municipal elections, especially those held in odd-numbered years like St. Paul’s, attract far fewer voters. And it’s been the case for many decades that older voters are more reliable participants than younger voters. But still, mayor and City Council elections do have consequences.</p><p dir="ltr">And, if you assume that elected officials are likely to pay closer attention to the needs and wants of voters than non-voters, the Portland State scholars concluded: &nbsp;“Our results clearly indicate that in these cities, residents between 18‐34 years of age are close to invisible on the electoral landscape.”</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/07/tracking-turnout-older-voters-overwhelm-mayoral-elections-st-paul-and-other-c#commentsNationSt. PaulGeographyPoliticsUrban AffairsINNChris ColemanWed, 29 Jul 2015 13:37:58 +0000Eric Black93192 at http://www.minnpost.comWhy Bernie Sanders, unlike other candidates, has higher favorable poll ratingshttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/07/why-bernie-sanders-unlike-other-candidates-has-higher-favorable-poll-ratings
<p dir="ltr">Our political climate seems to be pretty seriously poisoned. The most recent evidence, from <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/nbc-marist-polls-show-donald-trump-running-strong-iowa-nh-n398401">the latest NBC/Marist and Quinnipiac Polls,</a> testing the favorable/unfavorable ratings of six leading candidates for president in Iowa and New Hampshire, finds that (in both states) five of the six have higher unfavorable ratings than favorable.</p><p dir="ltr">(The question that elicits this generally goes like this: As I read each name, please say if you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of these people — or if you have never heard of them.)</p><p dir="ltr">The one exception, in both states, was Bernie Sanders. In Iowa his favorable/unfavorable rating was “above water” (as the pollsters call it) by 30-27, which really wouldn’t be very impressive if all of the other candidates from both parties weren’t below water. In New Hampshire, which is next door to Sanders state of Vermont, he was also the only one above water, and by a much more impressive 41-29 margin.</p><p dir="ltr">I’ve never met Sen. Sanders but my impression, from seeing him on TV a good deal, is that he comes across as neither handsome, funny, warm nor charming. The one thing that comes across is that if you ask him a substantive question, he will give you a substantive answer.</p><p dir="ltr">I would like to believe (and I do believe) that Sanders’ relatively good showing on the fav/unfav question reflects the average voter’s deep hunger for straight talk, or the quality which the punditocracy has decided to name “authenticity.”</p><p dir="ltr">Given the carefully choreographed dance routine that most of the candidates use when talking about issues compared to the fairly radical (by U.S. standards) but very straight talk from Sanders, I conclude that respondents on the favorable-unfavorable question are reacting mostly to his refreshing candor.</p><p dir="ltr">(Yes, Donald Trump also seems blunt. But using strong rude language to insult anyone who criticizes you is not the same as taking clear positions on issues. Trump, in fact, is the furthest under water of any of the candidates. In Iowa, Trumps scores 32 percent favorable to 60 percent unfavorable. In New Hampshire, it’s even worse: 27/67. His enormous, historic, breathtaking unfavorable ratings are the reason that — notwithstanding his overall lead in the polls — most pundits continue to assert that he is very unlikely to becomes president or the nominee of a major party.)</p><p dir="ltr">Of course, Trump is leading the field in New Hampshire and running second (to Scott Walker) in Iowa. It’s also true that Hillary Clinton, who is running ahead of Sanders in both states, has the second worst favorable/unfavorable ratings. She is under water by 19 percentage points in Iowa (37-56) and by 20 in New Hampshire &nbsp;(37/57).</p><p dir="ltr">So obviously, your favorable/unfavorable score does not translate directly into electoral success. Bernie Sanders has identified himself as a socialist during his entire political career (he prefers “democratic socialist”). In a few recent interviews, he has been asked whether he still wants to use that word (which, the questioner often implies, is a ticket to Palookaville in U.S. politics). Of course, Sanders replies, playing shape-shifter word games is not me.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/07/why-bernie-sanders-unlike-other-candidates-has-higher-favorable-poll-ratings#commentsMediaNationElection 2016BusinessGeographyPoliticsINNBernie SandersDonald TrumpHillary ClintonTue, 28 Jul 2015 13:51:36 +0000Eric Black93170 at http://www.minnpost.comMichele Bachmann decodes Obama's secret plan to let Iran have nukeshttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/07/michele-bachmann-decodes-obamas-secret-plan-let-iran-have-nukes
<p dir="ltr">Former U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) mostly keeps a fairly low-profile these days. But she still has a fundraising arm called MichelePAC, which recently put out an email that (well, yes, it did also ask for money) divulging President Obama's real intentions in negotiating with Iran.</p><p dir="ltr">It turns out, MichelePAC has figured out, that the president's only goal in negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran was to prevent Iran from having a nuclear bomb for another year and a half so Obama can be out of office when the Tehran gets the bomb.</p><p dir="ltr">Here's the deal, Obama said (on at least one occasion and perhaps others but the one I'm quoting below comes from<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/06/opinion/thomas-friedman-the-obama-doctrine-and-iran-interview.html"> an April 15 interview Obama gave to New York Times columnist — and native Minnesotan -- Thomas Friedman)</a> the following:</p><p dir="ltr">“I’ve been very clear that Iran will not get a nuclear weapon on my watch, and I think they should understand that we mean it."</p><p dir="ltr">Did you catch it? <em>"Not on my watch."</em> Obama will leave office in January of 2017 and, according to Bachmann's MichelePAC email, notwithstanding the agreement's 15-year duration, all Obama got from Iran and all he ever wanted was to push the date of the Iranian bomb far enough into the future that he can be safely out of office when it happens. And then, obviously, no one will be able to blame Obama. Whatever poor slob takes over the Oval Office will be responsible.</p><p dir="ltr">Think I'm exaggerating? I can't find the whole MichelePAC email on the Web so I can't link to it, but here's the key section:</p><p dir="ltr">"A nuclear weaponed Iran will soon become the world's showcase nation for nuclear proliferation. The $150 billion-plus signing bonus Iran will soon see deposited in its bank account will go a long way in paying Russia, China and North Korea for nuclear weapon supplies and intercontinental missile delivery systems. Iran is already violating the interim agreement. Obama's so-called ‘SnapBack of sanctions’ jargon will prove as powerful as a wet noodle.</p><p dir="ltr"><em>“But then, that was obviously the Obama administration's plan all along, wasn't it?</em> I think Obama's real agreement with Iran is a promise that they won't strike Israel or anyone else until he is no longer in office. <em>His reiterated ‘not on my watch’ rhetoric confirms that.</em> (Emphasis added).</p><p>“Well when America's security is at stake we're all on watch — and I say the Obama Iran agreement must be rejected! If you agree, please make a generous contribution of $25, $50 or even $75 right now to support the fight to defeat this terrible deal now."</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/07/michele-bachmann-decodes-obamas-secret-plan-let-iran-have-nukes#commentsBarack ObamaPoliticsINNIranMichele BachmannFri, 24 Jul 2015 13:38:37 +0000Eric Black93129 at http://www.minnpost.comWho supports the Donald?http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/07/who-supports-donald
<p>No matter what happens, I promise not to write about Donald Trump tomorrow. But for today, I thought <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-the-un-reagan/2015/07/21/88f0cd52-2fc3-11e5-8353-1215475949f4_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions&amp;wpmm=1">Ruth Marcus provided a small service in helping us understand</a> the Trump phenomenon in her column today by asking the question: Who are the Trump supporters?</p><p>For answers, unsurprisingly, she turned to the just-published Washington Post poll, the one that showed Trump with a large lead over the other 49 Republican presidential aspirants (although, it also showed a sharp drop in support for Trump on the final day of the survey, the day after Trump's insult to John McCain's war record was widely reported). Marcus posed an obvious question: What kinds of Republicans said Trump was their first choice for the nomination?</p><p>The answer was simple: They are younger, poorer and less-educated than the overall poll sample. (They are not, by the way, overwhelmingly male, which caused Marcus to tut-tut thus: "Ladies, I expected better.")</p><p>In <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/first-read-making-sense-trump-bump-n396426?cid=eml_nfr_20150722">"First Read," its every-morning-note-for-political-junkies, the NBC news team</a> turned for Trump-bump understanding to the story of the 2011-12 Republican primary race. Thus:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"In the July 2011 NBC/WSJ poll, the leaders were Romney and Michele Bachmann. In August, it was Rick Perry and Romney. In October, it was Herman Cain and Romney. A month later, it was Romney and Cain again. And in Dec. 2011, it was Newt Gingrich and Romney. So what does that tell us? For starters, the GOP race was incredibly volatile, always featuring Romney vs. an anti-Romney alternative flavor the month. But maybe more importantly, it was about an anti-Romney constituency in search of a candidate. These were voters who weren't wild about Romney, who weren't wild about the Republican establishment as a whole, but who wanted someone else. And eventually, they settled on Rick Santorum (the last anti-Romney standing). So if that lesson from 2011-2012 taught us anything, it's that Trump's rise isn't about Donald Trump; folks, he isn't going to be the GOP's nominee. Rather, it's about where his supporters/voters go. Trump's constituency is very real and perhaps durable -- even if they end up candidate shopping again."</p><p>So, for the sake of discussion, let's say Jeb Bush is the Mitt Romney of 2016. He's the establishment candidate (although it must be noted that he doesn't yet enjoy the kind of overwhelming support of the party establishment that Romney did and it's possible to imagine that someone else will play the role of establishment choice). He's dull and avoids radical-sounding statements.</p><p>To the ears of the Trump crowd, he's a ditherer who talks without saying anything and doesn't promise the kind of deep, angry change that is needed. They want someone who sounds different, who violates the norms of political correctness, who seems to be speaking from the gut, who is proposing fundamental change even if the details sound crazy to the public policy mavens. To the writers of "First Read," the constituency that feels this way is a "very real and perhaps durable" element of the Republican electorate. If/when Trump blows, they will get on the bandwagon of a different anti-establishment candidate.</p><p><strong>One last thing</strong></p><p>One last thing from back in the Marcus column and the Post poll and which explains one of the ways Trump could turn into the ultimate Republican nightmare for 2016: In a trial heat match-up between Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton, Clinton wins by 50 to 44 among registered voters.</p><p>But in a three-way, Clinton-Bush-Trump race, Trump gets 20 percent, most of them voters who would prefer Bush over Clinton if those were their only choices, and thus Clinton’s beats Bush by 46&thinsp;to 30. That's a 10-point increase in Clinton's lead by virtue of having Trump in race.</p><p></p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/07/who-supports-donald#commentsWed, 22 Jul 2015 15:22:59 +0000Eric Black93110 at http://www.minnpost.comWhy Donald Trump is polling well — for nowhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/07/why-donald-trump-polling-well-now
<p dir="ltr">Writing for the Washington Post’s excellent Monkey Cage blog, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/07/20/why-is-trump-surging-blame-the-media/?wpisrc=nl_pmpol&amp;wpmm=1">political scientist John Sides suggests that the reason Donald Trump is polling well</a> in the context of the Republican presidential field is that the media is writing and talking about him so much. Writes Sides:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“When a pollster interrupts people’s lives and asks them about a presidential primary that doesn’t formally begin for months, a significant number of people will mention whichever candidate happens to be in the news these days. It’s basically a version of what’s called the ‘availability heuristic.’ And for any causal consumer of news, Trump is very available these days.”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">Undoubtedly, Sides (who professes political science at George Washington University) has a valid starting point. Much (and probably most) of what the general public knows about political figures comes through some form of journalism.</p><p dir="ltr">Trump has certainly dominated coverage of the race for the Republican nomination recently and he has <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/2016_republican_presidential_nomination-3823.html">risen to the top of several recent polls</a>, although it is questionable how meaningful such a “lead” is when you lead with 18 percent in a field of (approximately) 15 candidates and you are still the candidate whom most respondents say they cannot see themselves supporting.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Blame the media?</h4><p dir="ltr">Sides demonstrates with a graphic a convincing correlation between Trump’s recent rise in the polls and the amount of coverage he has received. The correlation underlies the worst thing about the Sides post, something he probably didn’t write, which is the headline on his article: “Why is Trump Surging? Blame the media.”</p><p dir="ltr">Headlines are necessarily shallow. And I have no interest here in mounting a general defense of the news media’s conduct. But the silly headline seems to imply that journalists are somehow aiding and abetting Trump’s short-term rise, as measured by polls, to the high teens, which looks high at the moment only because the Repub field is so large. (The Democratic side of the Fox poll that has Trump leading with 18 percent <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/2016_democratic_presidential_nomination-3824.html">shows Bernie Sanders with 19 percent</a>, which, of course, looks a lot different because of the smaller Dem field, dominated by the frontrunner, Hillary Clinton.)</p><h4 dir="ltr">Discovery and scrutiny</h4><p dir="ltr">If you are horrified that Trump’s boorishness is being rewarded with support in the polls (and, if so, you would probably not be alone), you should take heart from another part of Sides’ piece in which he suggests that a “discovery” period (Sides’ term) in which the public tells pollsters they support you because they’ve been hearing your name in the news is followed by a period Sides calls “‘scrutiny’ — in particular, scrutiny from the news media, aided and abetted by the competing candidates. (Hillary Clinton <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/upshot/the-scrutiny-phase-hillary-clintons-negativity-challenge.html?abt=0002&amp;abg=0">knows all about this</a>.) This scrutiny tends to produce much less favorable coverage and, for many candidates, a permanent decline in the candidate’s poll numbers.”</p><p dir="ltr">As I said above, I’m not defending, in a general sense, the media’s role in shaping the public’s attitude toward candidates (although it is a lot more honest and informative than the other main source of political messages, namely campaign commercials).</p><p dir="ltr">The so-called objective portions of the media insist that they are not trying to make anyone’s poll numbers go up or down, and this is more or less true. The question of how many times to put Donald Trump on the front page when he is both leading in the polls and saying outrageous things is not simple one. In fact, his peevish vulgarity is also good copy, as he undoubtedly knows.</p><p>I don’t believe those journalists who go on the chat shows and make predictions are particularly good at seeing the future. I shy away from fortune-telling myself. But I will be very surprised if Trump becomes the nominee of any major party. And I hope that Sides is right about the power of the “scrutiny” phase, not so it can produce a decline in any particular candidate’s poll numbers but so that this very consequential election can be about something more substantive than bad hair and bad manners.</p><p>p.s. to the above added midmorning Tuesday: The Washington Post has a<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/poll-trump-surges-to-big-lead-in-gop-presidential-race/2015/07/20/efd2e0d0-2ef8-11e5-8f36-18d1d501920d_story.html?hpid=z1"> new poll out this morning showing Trump's poll numbers even higher</a> (24 percent) and further ahead of the rest of the field (Scott Walker ran second at 13 percent). But the Post it notes that the last day of the polling was the only day that occurred after Trump's attack on John McCain's heroism and that his standing on that day was dramatically down. Wrote the Post:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"Support for Trump fell sharply on the one night that voters were surveyed following those comments. Telephone interviewing for the poll began Thursday, and most calls were completed before the news about the remarks was widely reported. Although the sample size for the final day was small, the decline was statistically significant. Still, it is difficult to predict what could happen to Trump’s support in the coming days and weeks as the controversy plays out."</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/07/why-donald-trump-polling-well-now#commentsMediaNationElection 2016BusinessGeographyPoliticsINNDonald TrumpHillary ClintonTue, 21 Jul 2015 13:33:11 +0000Eric Black93086 at http://www.minnpost.comA plea for patience and humility in assessing the Iran nuke dealhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/07/plea-patience-and-humility-assessing-iran-nuke-deal
<p dir="ltr">Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu keeps calling the Iran nuke deal a<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/15/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-deal-israel.html?_r=0"> "historic mistake.</a>" Apparently, Netanyahu feels able to travel into the future so that he can look back at the latest events in historical context. I don't whether one should envy him for having acquired this ability to look back from the future on the events of today or pity him for thinking he possess such an ability. In any case, I hope he turns out to be wrong.</p><p dir="ltr">But the best thing I've read so far this morning about the Iran nuke deal is<a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/14/why-its-too-early-to-tell-how-history-will-judge-the-iran-and-greece-deals/?utm_source=Sailthru&amp;amp;utm_medium=email&amp;amp;utm_term=Flashpoints&amp;amp;utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&amp;wp_login_redirect=0"> this article by David Rothkopf</a>, editor of Foreign Policy, because it is deeply steeped in the humble understanding that we won't really be able to conduct a reasonable cost/benefit analysis of the deal from the future, looking back on events that haven't yet occurred.</p><p dir="ltr">Critics of the deal, who were criticizing it long before they knew what the final agreement would be, enjoyed the advantage of not having to be very clear about the alternatives that would be better. And the additional advantage — especially those like Netanyahu for whom the best alternative would be to have the United States start a war with Iran — of knowing that their alternative would not be tested, at least during the presidency of Barack Obama.</p><p dir="ltr">It will perhaps be fun or interesting but almost certainly not very illuminating to see how the Iran deal enters the next stages of the 2016 presidential contest. This much I can guarantee: The candidates will not say anything much like this, below, from the Rothkopf essay:</p><blockquote><p>Is the Iran deal a good deal? Again, while the media was, within moments of the deal’s announcement early on July 14, awash with Tuesday-morning quarterbacks explaining how they would have done it better, it is the deal we have. Further, no one can reasonably argue that it is not better to have some agreement that at least makes ending Iran’s nuclear weapons program a possibility for the foreseeable future. The key is how leaders in Iran and around the world act once the deal is in place. We have seen deals in the past that have simply not been effective. (See North Korea.) But there is a path forward with this deal that will certainly be better than the uncertainty that has hung over this issue for the past 13 years. If the deal’s terms are enforced and it translates into real inspections that are regularly and even aggressively conducted, where violations are marked without hesitation — and, of course, the Iranian government has the intent to honor its terms — this deal will be seen as successful.</p></blockquote>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/07/plea-patience-and-humility-assessing-iran-nuke-deal#commentsNationWorldGeographyPoliticsINNBenjamin NetanyahuIranWed, 15 Jul 2015 15:55:05 +0000Eric Black93024 at http://www.minnpost.comObama by the numbers: A way above average presidenthttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/07/obama-numbers-way-above-average-president
<p dir="ltr">First a plea for humility, then a confession, then a recommendation.</p><p dir="ltr">Judging a president’s performance is fraught with peril. Most of us are blinkered by partisan and ideological bias that makes us more likely to notice the successes or only the failures. There is no good set of rules or norms that tells us which indicators to notice or emphasize.</p><p dir="ltr">Then there’s the difficulty of deciding which of the myriad things that happened in the country or the world are actually the result of the president’s policies. There’s the problem that a president often can’t put in place the policies he favors because of lack of cooperation from Congress. I suspect I could name several more problems with our perceptions of a president, and perhaps many of them are more problematic than usual in the case of Barack Obama (or perhaps it just seems that way with each new president, especially in this era of polarization).</p><p dir="ltr">Now the confession. I’m a pretty solid Obama admirer. I voted for him, approved of many of his major initiatives and have grown weary of the tendency of his critics to blame Obama for everything they don’t like about the economy or the country or the world, a quality that has sometimes been referred to as <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Obama+Derangement+Syndrome">“Obama derangement syndrome</a>.”</p><p dir="ltr">(For the record, and in the spirit of fairness, I should note that righty columnist Charles Krauthammer previously claimed to have discovered a previous <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/charleskrauthammer/2003/12/05/bush_derangement_syndrome/page/full">“Bush Derangement Syndrome”</a> in 2003, personified by Howard Dean and a few others.)</p><p dir="ltr">Now the recommendation: The estimable <a href="http://www.factcheck.org/" target="_blank">Factcheck.org</a> has been publishing a quarterly report called “Obama’s numbers” in which the factcheckers update a set of statistical measurements comparing the most recent numbers (for various things like unemployment, government debt and so forth), in all cases comparing the latest numbers to where they stood on the day Obama took office. It’s called “Obama’s Numbers.” The most recent quarterly update was published last week.</p><p dir="ltr">The recommendation is to take a look at it. It is, of course, imperfect as any such effort must be for many reasons alluded to above (it doesn’t measure everything, but by its nature it does somehow imply that everything that happened since Inauguration Day 2009 is a reflection of the Obamaness of the intervening six and a half years).</p><p dir="ltr">And, confirmation bias or no, I think it makes a pretty good case for Obama as a way above average president.</p><p dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.factcheck.org/2015/07/obamas-numbers-july-2015-update/">Here’s the link.</a></p><p dir="ltr">In case you are too busy or lazy to click through, here’s the summary section:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">Since Barack Obama first took office:</p><ul><li>The economy has added nearly 7.9 million jobs, and the unemployment rate is now lower than the historical median.</li></ul><ul><li>Business establishment start-ups have increased by 20 percent, and the number of job openings is the highest in more than 14&nbsp;years.</li></ul><ul><li>The purchasing power of weekly paychecks is up 2.6 percent, despite some recent slippage.</li></ul><ul><li>Nevertheless, the number of people&nbsp;receiving food stamps is still 43 percent higher than when Obama was first sworn in, despite recent declines.</li></ul><ul><li>And the home ownership rate has continued to decline, to the lowest point in over a quarter century.</li></ul><ul><li>U.S. oil production is up 94 percent. Wind and solar power are up 252 percent.</li></ul><ul><li>U.S. dependency on oil imports is down to the lowest point since the 1970s.</li></ul></blockquote><ul><li><blockquote>The percentage of foreigners who say they approve of the U.S. is up in most countries including France, Britain, Japan, Mexico, Turkey, Pakistan and even Israel, where it stands at 81 percent of those polled this year. One of the few exceptions is Russia, where U.S. favorability has plunged to 15 percent.</blockquote></li></ul>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/07/obama-numbers-way-above-average-president#commentsBarack ObamaNationGeographyPoliticsINNMon, 13 Jul 2015 13:42:27 +0000Eric Black92968 at http://www.minnpost.com'The nature of politics is to subtract meaning from language'http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/07/nature-politics-subtract-meaning-language
<p dir="ltr">I can't say it's enough to get me to read a book-length memoir by a former speechwriter for former (now disgraced) South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford. But after reading Washington Post book critic<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/book-party/wp/2015/07/08/what-its-like-to-write-speeches-for-a-rude-rambling-and-disgraced-politician/"> Carlos Lozada's review of "The Speechwriter" by Barton Swaim,</a> who wrote speeches for Sanford, I couldn't help passing along two lines that capture some of the difference between straight talk and political talk.</p><p dir="ltr">First, from Swaim, on the kind of rhetoric we hear from politicians and their spokesters every day:</p><p dir="ltr">“Using vague, slippery or just meaningless language is not the same as lying: it’s not intended to deceive so much as to preserve options, buy time, distance oneself from others, or just to sound like you’re saying something instead of nothing.”</p><p dir="ltr">Then, even more depressing, from Lozada:</p><p dir="ltr">"The nature of politics is to subtract meaning from language."</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/07/nature-politics-subtract-meaning-language#commentsNationGeographyPoliticsINNFri, 10 Jul 2015 13:31:44 +0000Eric Black92941 at http://www.minnpost.comMitch Pearlstein explains why his conservative think tank is flourishing after 25 years in Minnesotahttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/07/mitch-pearlstein-explains-why-his-conservative-think-tank-flourishing-after-2
<div class="float-right"><img src="/sites/default/files/MitchPearlstein250.jpg" alt="Mitch Pearlstein" width="250" height="296" /><div class="caption-credit"><span class="credit">Center of the American Experiment</span><span class="caption">Mitch Pearlstein</span></div></div><p dir="ltr">Congratulations to the Center of the American Experiment, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this summer, and to <a href="http://www.americanexperiment.org/author/mitch-pearlstein">Mitch Pearlstein</a>, its founder and president.</p><p dir="ltr">I recently had a great chat with Pearlstein about his love affair with the Twin Cities and his experience running a conservative think tank in this (generally) liberal place.</p><p dir="ltr">Pearlstein, a kid from Queens (the New York borough), drove cross-country with some friends during a college summer and came through the Twin Cities for the first time.</p><p dir="ltr">“I just loved the place, and I still do,” he told me, and so he started looking for an opportunity to make a life here. He first moved here in 1974, as part of the retinue of C. Peter Magrath, who had just been named president of the University of Minnesota.</p><p dir="ltr">“If I had to come up with a couple of adjectives to describe what attracted me to the place, I would describe it as ‘measured’ and ‘less crazy,’’ Pearlstein said. True, “less crazy” is not technically an adjective, and it prompts the question: Less crazy than what? Pearlstein explained: “There was something about the whole East Coast that I wanted to get away from.” (I am also a native of the East Coast megalopolis, and I know what he means and I feel the same way.)</p><p dir="ltr">After working for Magrath and then for the Pioneer Press (as an editorial writer), Pearlstein had an opportunity to go to Washington (which had also been on his bucket list) and work on education policy, a major interest (still is). &nbsp;But …</p><p dir="ltr">“Once I got to Washington, which was an experience I had thought I really wanted to have, almost right away I missed the Twin Cities and started thinking about how to get back here.” His plan: start raising funds and creating the infrastructure for a conservative free-market think tank based in the Twin Cities. It took him two years, but when he was able to move back here “it was like coming home.”</p><p dir="ltr">He is weirdly enamored of the fact that we are in the smack middle of the United States (at least on the east-west axis). “It feels good being surrounded by my country,” he says.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Civility in Minnesota</h4><p dir="ltr">When I press him for qualities (other than “measured”) he likes about Minnesota, he started talking about the deep strain of civility: “There’s something to the idea of civility here. Sure, politicians certainly know how to beat the crap out of each other when they are running against each other, but the quality of the beating is more substantive and not as ‘vicious’ as it is in some other places we could think of.” For example, Pearlstein said: He can’t imagine a Minnesota paper that would descend to the rudeness level of New York Post headlines. And if one did, Minnesotans would reject it.</p><div class="float-left"><div class="minnpost-ads-ad minnpost-ads-ad-Middle "><script type="text/javascript">OAS_AD("Middle");</script></div></div><p dir="ltr">Not long after CAE launched, he recalled, he organized a large conference on homelessness and welfare-reform featuring some nationally prominent conservative thought leaders on those topics, including an NYU professor named Larry Mead. Many of the out-of-town guest speakers agreed to come for free, Pearlstein said, because they didn’t believe a right-leaning think could pull off such an event in Minneapolis (or, perhaps, they thought they could say yes and not have to show up).</p><p dir="ltr">Afterward Mead marveled at the way he was received while expressing righty views in such a liberal town. “In New York I would have been pelted with fruit,” he told Pearlstein.</p><p dir="ltr">Pearlstein also suggests that Minnesota is not quite as liberal as its reputation. Republicans win lots of big statewide elections (fewer recently, but during the 1980s and '90s, this was most definitely true). But, Pearlstein conceded: “I do recognize that, everything else being equal, a Democrat is usually gonna win here.”</p><p dir="ltr">But there are plenty of smart, thoughtful conservatives here to keep the center going. “When I was laying the groundwork to start the center, I was totally confident that there were more than enough people here who would like to read the kinds of things that we would produce and like to hear the kinds of speakers that we would be presenting,” Pearlstein said. “We sold out the Civic Center for Margaret Thatcher. Some people here go absolutely batty crazy for Charles Krauthammer, who we’ve had here to speak more than once.”</p><h4 dir="ltr">Minnesota policies</h4><p dir="ltr">I asked him how conservatives deal with the fact that Minnesota adopts so many policies that conservatives suggest should be inconsistent with producing prosperity, low unemployment and so on but gets such good results. His reply began:</p><p dir="ltr">“On the surface, it does look like conservatives are in a bind on that one. But we believe that we [Minnesota] might be even better off if we had lower taxes. Those on the right tend to think so. Personally, do I believe that, over time and on average, lower taxes lead to higher growth? On balance, I absolutely do.</p><p dir="ltr">“Do I believe that a lot of folks on the left are oblivious to the fact that Minnesota being an outlier on the estate tax is leading — absolutely is leading — to the departure of a lot of folks who might be called deep-pocketed, the folks we also call the donor class. I absolutely do.</p><p dir="ltr">“Go out and speak to some financial advisers right now about how often people are coming to them, people of high net worth, and saying, ‘I don’t want such a large portion of my estate to go to the government. I want it to go to my kids or to charity.’ And they are making sure that they’re out of Minnesota every year for six months and a day.</p><p dir="ltr">“There are a lot of people, and maybe most of them are Republicans, who choose to believe that they ought to have first dibs on their own money. Democrats generally think that government has a stronger claim to those dollars than Republicans tend to think.”</p><p dir="ltr">“I’m not trashing our economy or anything about this state. But do I believe life in Minnesota would go to hell if we lowered taxes? I definitely do not.”</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/07/mitch-pearlstein-explains-why-his-conservative-think-tank-flourishing-after-2#commentsPovertyMinneapolisNationSt. PaulGeographyPoliticsUrban AffairsINNMitch PearlsteinThu, 09 Jul 2015 13:36:12 +0000Eric Black92918 at http://www.minnpost.comGingrich’s take on U.S. history and ‘isolationism’? It’s a messhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/07/gingrich-s-take-us-history-and-isolationism-it-s-mess
<p dir="ltr">Newt Gingrich was once an actual historian. Has a Ph.D in history (although, for purposes of this post, it might be worth mentioning that it was in European history; his PhD was on "Belgian Education Policy in the Congo 1945–1960"). He taught history (also geography) before becoming a full-time politician and now a grey eminence of the Right.</p><p dir="ltr">But after all these years in politics, his academic skills are sadly diminished and his historical discussions have been subordinated to his political diatribes.</p><p dir="ltr">Still, I'm grateful to him for deciding to honor the imminent Fourth of July holiday with an essay on the Founding Fathers (mostly because it provides me this opportunity to fulminate on a pet semantic peeve of mine, namely the universal abuse of the word "isolationist" to promote war-mongering.)</p><p dir="ltr">Former U.S. House Speaker Gingrich's<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-the-founding-fathers/2015/07/02/72f13198-202f-11e5-bf41-c23f5d3face1_story.html?wpisrc=nl_popns&amp;wpmm=1"> Thursday op-ed essay for the Washington Post</a> was titled "Five Myths About the Founding Fathers." The five myths he chooses to rebut are all pretty stupid, in my view. None of them particularly resonates as something that most Americans think is true of the Founding Fathers as a generality.</p><p dir="ltr">Then, having constructed a straw myth, Gingrich burns each one down by demonstrating that at least one or two of the Founders said at least one or two things to contradict the (non)-Myth that all the Founders felt a certain way. It turns out that in all five cases, the Founders felt the way Gingrich feels. I won't bore you with all of the Gingrich myths, only one because, as I mentioned, it gives me a chance to call attention to the very common, virtually universal, misuse of the word "isolationist."</p><p dir="ltr">Myth No. 3 that Gingrich explodes is:<em> "The founders were isolationists."</em></p><p dir="ltr">I can't say that I know anyone who, when they think about the Founders, says one of their next thoughts is "bunch of isolationists."</p><p dir="ltr">What Gingrich really wants to say is that Ron Paul is an isolationist who "calls for America to withdraw from its traditional role as a global power." Gingrich disagrees with Paul and argues that the Founders would too (but this is pretty silly because in the time of the Founders the United States had no "traditional role as a global power” and no real clear collective position on the benfits of global powerdom).</p><p dir="ltr">But Gingrich apparently thinks that George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson (the three he discusses in that passage) would agree with him. Go ahead and<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-the-founding-fathers/2015/07/02/72f13198-202f-11e5-bf41-c23f5d3face1_story.html?wpisrc=nl_popns&amp;wpmm=1"> click through to the Gingrich essay if you like</a> and you'll see that he evinces more evidence that Washington, Franklin and Jefferson were leery of things like "entangling" (Jefferson) or "permanent" (Washington) alliances than evidence to the contrary.</p><p dir="ltr">It's a mess. The Post should be embarrassed to have run such a poorly argued piece. Gingrich's main point is that <em>he</em> is not an isolationist and he was in the mood to take a shot at Ron Paul. But <em>my</em> main point is that Gingrich and pretty much everyone else (often of a neoconservative hue) who uses the word "isolationist" to disparage those who disagree with their desire to perpetuate a permanent state of war has decided to use the "i" word to mean something that it doesn't mean.</p><p dir="ltr"><a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/isolationism?s=t">Dictionary.com defines "isolationism"</a> (accurately, in my view) as:</p><p dir="ltr">"The policy or doctrine of isolating one's country from the affairs of other nations by declining to enter into alliances, foreign economic commitments, international agreements, etc., seeking to devote the entire efforts of one's country to its own advancement and remain at peace by avoiding foreign entanglements and responsibilities." Alternatively:</p><p dir="ltr">"A policy of nonparticipation in or withdrawal from international affairs."</p><p dir="ltr">There is no one of any influence in the United States who resembles an "isolationist" when the word is correctly defined.</p><p dir="ltr">There are many people (I consider myself one) who are skeptical whether it is in the interest of the United States to enter every military conflict that the neocons can dream up, suspicious that these adventures often turn out not to work as well as the promoters of perma-war tend to promise and leery of whether in every corner of the globe there are conflicts that threaten to harm the United States or its often-invoked-but-seldom-defined "vital interests."</p><p dir="ltr">There's room for argument over this. But to call these poor, deluded peaceniks "isolationists" is just agenda-driven propaganda-peddling by loaded and inaccurate word choice.</p><p dir="ltr">The United States is a member — in fact the leading member — of the United Nations, NATO and the Organization of American States. An "isolationist" (please glance back at the actual definition) would favor withdrawal from them all. No one of any influence in U.S. foreign-policy circles does.</p><p dir="ltr">A proper " isolationist" would say that it's none of the United States' business who has a nuclear weapon. But the argument in U.S. policy circles doesn't include this idea. On the contrary, the argument is between those who want to bomb or invade or overthrow the government of Iran (presumably, as Gingrich apparently believes, just as George Washington would have done) and those (including the current occupant of Washington's old presidential post) who prefer to assemble a large coalition of allies and seek to limit the Iranian nuclear program through negotiation, although never repudiating the option of bombing if nothing else works.</p><p dir="ltr">To call that second camp "isolationist" is inaccurate, or, in Gingrich's case, either dishonest or divorced from any real understanding of what the word means. But those with PhD's in history probably do know what the word means. They also know that the word "isolationist" sounds weeny and wrong to American ears, so at the risk of their intellectual honesty, they often throw it around when anyone tries to make the case that the next great effort (I feel like like saying "imperialist effort" but that might cross the line into the same kind of language abuse I'm condemning here) to dictate the behavior of foreign nations might turn out to be a bad idea.</p><h4 dir="ltr">A small addendum</h4><p dir="ltr">During my (very enjoyable) years of fulminating for MinnPost readers, I made it a small tradition to write a piece around the Fourth of July arguing (well, really, demonstrating) that the Second of July in 1776 should be the day we celebrate. I think I may have neglected this duty for a few years, and now I've wasted my July 4 celebration fulminating about Gingrich and isolationism instead. If you missed the umpteem previous iterations of the July 2 essay,<a href="http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2010/07/happy-second-july"> here's one of the old ones</a>. Whether you buy it or not (although the argument for July 4 is spectacularly weak), have a lovely holiday.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/07/gingrich-s-take-us-history-and-isolationism-it-s-mess#commentsArmed ForcesNationGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNNewt GingrichFri, 03 Jul 2015 12:00:49 +0000Eric Black92877 at http://www.minnpost.comJeb Bush made money the old fashioned way: from those seeking political accesshttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/07/jeb-bush-made-money-old-fashioned-way-those-seeking-political-access
<p dir="ltr">My buddy Tom Hamburger and his Washington Post colleague Robert O’Harrow published over the weekend the results of <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/jeb-bush-dogged-by-decades-of-questions-about-business-deals/2015/06/28/0138223c-edb7-11e4-8abc-d6aa3bad79dd_story.html">a deep dive into the business career of Jeb Bush.</a> One of the main findings would be troubling if it weren’t so obvious:</p><p dir="ltr">Jeb, who was born rich and has become richer, often received lucrative opportunities from businessmen who hoped to gain access to and help from the federal government when either Jeb’s father or his brother were president. “It was a big deal,” one of his former colleagues from one of those ventures told the Post. “He could open doors we couldn’t.” It also seemed to have worked well for some of those who sought to benefit from associating with a member of the president’s family.</p><p dir="ltr">That should trouble us, but it’s a little late in the game to say that it should surprise us. And I don’t mean that comment to be about Bushes. It’s about how Washington really works.</p><p dir="ltr">The other finding is a bit more troubling. Jeb kept going into business with crooks. Jeb Bush “repeatedly put himself in situations that raised questions about his judgment and exposed him to reputational risk,” the Post team wrote. But that is euphemistic compared to the blunt statement:</p><p dir="ltr">“Five of his business associates have been convicted of crimes; one remains an international fugitive on fraud charges. In each case, Bush said he had no knowledge of any wrongdoing and said some of the people he met as a businessman in Florida took advantage of his naiveté.”</p><p dir="ltr">When the Post reporters sought comment from one of Bush’s spokesters, here is the highly illuminating statement they received:</p><p dir="ltr">“Jeb Bush had a successful career in commercial real estate and business before serving as Florida’s governor,” said Kristy Campbell, a Bush spokeswoman. “He has always operated with the highest level of integrity throughout his business career.”</p><h4 dir="ltr">The Clintons’ tale</h4><p dir="ltr">A Republican loyalist reading the above might think it’s typical of the liberal media to go after Bush and ignore the similar issues that surround the tale of how Bill and Hillary Clinton rose from “dead broke” when they left the White House to the fabulously wealthy plutocrats they are today. But you can think that only if you willfully blind yourself to the extensive work done by the “liberal media” on the operations of the Clinton Foundation, which has included taking many, many, very, very large contributions from those who might benefit from having friends and relatives in high government places.</p><p dir="ltr">Since leaving her cabinet post, Hillary has followed her husband into the racket of giving paid speeches, accepting six-figure fees for an hour or so’s work. But Hamburger and O’Harrow report that after leaving the governor’s office, Jeb made more than 100 speeches for fees of at least $50,000.</p><p dir="ltr">Jeb Bush also received at least $3 million in fees and grants of stocks for serving on the boards of six corporations. That’s the stockholders’ money, not mine, so maybe it’s none of my business. But by my lights, we should be troubled at how both Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush got so rich.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Bush’s economy</h4><p dir="ltr">Building on the Hamburger/O’Harrow piece, Paul Waldman (who writes for the Post’s Plum Line blog and also for the American Prospect) <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/06/29/jeb-bush-didnt-build-that/?wpisrc=nl_popns&amp;wpmm=1">confessed that</a> “if a bunch of corporations wanted to put me on their boards, where I’d make millions for doing almost nothing, I might take them up on it, too. It’s only problematic if Bush thinks that experience has really taught him how the economy works.”</p><p dir="ltr">Bush has suggested target numbers for what the U.S. economy might do under his Oval Office guidance that, Waldman says, would make him the most successful president in history. And Bush does suggest that his business experience is part of the reason he will be able to do that. Waldman (perhaps a tad sarcastically) concluded:</p><p>“It’s possible that when he finally releases the details [of his economic plan], Bush’s program will be so creative and transformative that it will blow everyone’s mind — and only a guy who had worked making deals for water pumps in Nigeria and real estate in Florida could have devised it. On the other hand, it might be pretty much what every other Republican advocates: cut taxes, cut regulations, await glorious new dawn of prosperity. I know which one I’m betting on.”</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/07/jeb-bush-made-money-old-fashioned-way-those-seeking-political-access#commentsNationElection 2016GeographyPoliticsINNHillary ClintonJeb BushWed, 01 Jul 2015 13:40:00 +0000Eric Black92843 at http://www.minnpost.comHow much nepotism is there in U.S. politics?http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/how-much-nepotism-there-us-politics
<div class="image float-right"><img src="/sites/default/files/JohnQuincyAdams320.jpg" alt="Adams in a posthumous portrait created in 1858 by G.P.A. Healy" title="John Quincy Adams in a posthumous portrait created in 1858 by G.P.A. Healy." width="320" height="423" /><div class="caption">John Quincy Adams in a posthumous portrait created in</div><div class="caption">1858 by G.P.A. Healy.</div></div><p dir="ltr">If Jeb Bush becomes president, he won’t be the first child of a former president to take the job (that was John Quincy Adams). But he will be the first brother of a former president to do so. If Hillary Clinton takes the prize, she will not only be the first of her distinguished gender but also the first spouse of a previous president to (re)occupy the White House.</p><p dir="ltr">(Pretty good trivia question here: We have already had the first presidential grandfather, presidential grandchild pairing. That was William Henry Harrison and his grandson Benjamin Harrison. I believe Benjamin Harrison might be the least known of all presidents.)</p><p dir="ltr">Anyway, the topic is the power of family dynasty in U.S. politics. It’s embarrassingly big, this tendency to elect people from the same families, and awkward in a country that prides itself on the idea that any (native born) American can grow up to president.</p><p dir="ltr">That’s technically true, of course, but the odds have always favored the well-born. (The absolute same thing can be said about the cherished American belief that anyone can grow up to be rich, which must coexist with the unpleasant truth that socioeconomic mobility is higher in most European countries than in ours.)</p><p dir="ltr">Oh, and did I mention that Lincoln Chafee, one of Clinton’s few opponents for the Democratic presidential nomination, is the former governor and senator of Rhode Island and is the son of John Chafee, who likewise was senator and governor of Rhode Island? Linc Chafee’s great-great-grandfather was also governor — in the 1870s. And one of Jeb Bush’s leading rivals, Sen. Rand Paul, is the son of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, who ran for the Repub nomination on the previous two rounds and once before that.</p><div class="float-left"><div class="minnpost-ads-ad minnpost-ads-ad-Middle "><script type="text/javascript">OAS_AD("Middle");</script></div></div><p dir="ltr">I should perhaps mention, before I get carried away noticing only the candidacies of those with family connections, that the presidential field is well-supplied with candidates of humble birth and/or a lack of family grandeur. I would also like to mention that Donald Trump, who was so, so tres gauche as to mention in his announcement statement that “I’m very rich,” did not choose to mention “I was born that way.”</p><p dir="ltr">I don’t know how the U.S. compares with other democracies in its tendency to elect members of rich and already-politically-successful families to high office. In “The Son Also Rises,” economic historian Gregory Clark argues that across cultures and across the centuries, “economic mobility rates are lower than conventionally estimated, do not vary across societies, and are resistant to social policies.”</p><p dir="ltr">Writing a few days ago <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/06/21/when-it-comes-to-politics-having-a-dad-who-came-before-you-helps-a-lot/?wpisrc=nl_politics&amp;wpmm=1">on this general topic for the Washington Post’s The Fix feature</a>, Hunter Schwarz &nbsp;said that “in some ways, the benefits of getting into politics after your dad did are&nbsp;no different than the benefits in other industries. You're related to someone you can turn to for career advice, and your last name&nbsp;might open a few doors, too. It's just that in politics, it's on a much larger scale. The doors your last name can get you into can lead to big&nbsp;campaign donations and votes. It's a ticket to entry that most mere mortals struggle to obtain.”</p><p dir="ltr">But Schwarz links to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/opinion/sunday/seth-stephens-davidowitz-just-how-nepotistic-are-we.html?_r=1">this earlier New York Times op-ed piece</a> by economist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, who actually crunched the numbers and concluded that the odds that you will become a U.S. senator are 8,500 times better if you had a parent who was a U.S. senator.</p><p dir="ltr">That’s a far greater likelihood than even the likelihood that an Army general’s child will become an Army general or than an Academy Award winner’s child will win an Oscar (although in all of those cases, the child is far more likely than the average person to make it to the top of the family profession).</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/how-much-nepotism-there-us-politics#commentsNationElection 2016GeographyPoliticsHistoryINNHillary ClintonJeb BushLincoln ChafeeTue, 30 Jun 2015 13:24:49 +0000Eric Black92823 at http://www.minnpost.comWho’s harmed by the same-sex marriage ruling?http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/who-s-harmed-same-sex-marriage-ruling
<p dir="ltr">Who benefits from Friday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that grants the equal rights and benefits of marriage to all couples, whether gay or straight? Pretty easy question, no? Gay and lesbian couples who want to get married but live in states that outlawed such marriage.</p><p dir="ltr">Who is harmed by the new ruling? Maybe it’s my lack of imagination, but I can’t think of anyone.</p><p dir="ltr">Writing for Slate in a regular column titled “Supreme Court Breakfast Table,” U.S. Court of Appeals <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_breakfast_table/features/2015/scotus_roundup/supreme_court_gay_marriage_john_roberts_dissent_in_obergefell_is_heartless.html">Judge Richard Posner raises the question above</a> and answers it pretty much as I have above. Then suggests:</p><p dir="ltr">“Unless it can be shown that same-sex marriage harms people who are not gay (or who are gay but don’t want to marry), there is no compelling reason for state intervention, and specifically for banning same-sex marriage. The dissenters in Obergefell [that’s the same-sex marriage case decided last week] missed this rather obvious point.”</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/who-s-harmed-same-sex-marriage-ruling#commentsNationCourtsMarriage AmendmentGeographyPoliticsINNMon, 29 Jun 2015 13:41:07 +0000Eric Black92808 at http://www.minnpost.comU.S. Supreme Court rules all states must recognize same-sex marriageshttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/us-supreme-court-rules-all-states-must-recognize-same-sex-marriages
<p dir="ltr">Same-sex marriage is a constitutional right and must be recognized in all 50 states, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a landmark decision released Friday morning. The majority summarized its decision thus:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times. The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a character protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning.</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">It was a 5-4 ruling with a familiar configuration of the four liberal justices plus Anthony Kennedy, the “swing” justice whose vote can often create a narrow majority and who wrote the majority ruling.</p><p dir="ltr">The ruling was rooted in the understanding that societies evolve and their understanding of marriage and of homosexuality do also. It used to be common in many states to have laws banning interracial marriages until the justices in Loving v. Virginia in 1967 ruled that such bans were unconstitutional. From Friday's ruling:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">The history of marriage is one of both continuity and change. Changes, such as the decline of arranged marriages and the abandonment of the law of coverture, have worked deep transformations in the structure of marriage, affecting aspects of marriage once viewed as essential. These new insights have strengthened, not weakened, the institution.</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">It used to be common for states to outlaw sexual acts between members of the same gender, a practice that the court upheld as recently as 1986, but then overruled in 2003, the majority opinion noted. The court rooted its ruling in the constitutional principles of “due process” and “equal protection.” From the ruling:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">This Court’s cases and the Nation’s traditions make clear that marriage is a keystone of the Nation’s social order. States have contributed to the fundamental character of marriage by placing it at the center of many facets of the legal and social order. There is no difference between same- and opposite-sex couples with respect to this principle, yet same-sex couples are denied the constellation of benefits that the States have linked to marriage and are consigned to an instability many opposite-sex couples would find intolerable. It is demeaning to lock same-sex couples out of a central institution of the Nation’s society, for they too may aspire to the transcendent purposes of marriage.</p><p dir="ltr">The limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples may long have seemed natural and just, but its inconsistency with the central meaning of the fundamental right to marry is now manifest.</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">The majority addressed the question of whether a marriage between a same-sex couple is legally different because of procreation:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">This is not to say that the right to marry is less meaningful for those who do not or cannot have children. An ability, desire, or promise to procreate is not and has not been a prerequisite for a valid marriage in any State.</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">The four most conservative justices dissented and each wrote their own explanation of why they disagreed. For the first time in his tenure, Chief Justice John Roberts read his dissent from the bench. From Roberts' dissent:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">This Court is not a legislature. Whether same-sex marriage is a good idea should be of no concern to us. Under the Constitution, judges have power to say what the law is, not what it should be. The people who ratified the Constitution authorized courts to exercise "neither force nor will but merely judgment." [That’s from the Federalist Papers.]</p><p dir="ltr">Although the policy arguments for extending marriage to same-sex couples may be compelling, the legal arguments for requiring such an extension are not. The fundamental right to marry does not include a right to make a State change its definition of marriage. And a State’s decision to maintain the meaning of marriage that has persisted in every culture throughout human history can hardly be called irrational. In short, our Constitution does not enact any one theory of marriage. The people of a State are free to expand marriage to include same-sex couples, or to retain the historic definition.</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">Roberts explained and softened his opposition with this statement:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">If you are among the many Americans — of whatever sexual orientation — who favor expanding same-sex marriage, by all means celebrate today's decision. Celebrate the achievement of a desired goal. Celebrate the opportunity for a new expression of commitment to a partner. Celebrate the availability of new benefits. But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it.</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">Justice Antonin Scalia, followed the same logic as Roberts only, as one might expect, with a more colorful tone:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">I join The chief justice’s opinion in full. I write separately to call attention to this Court’s threat to American democracy.</p><p dir="ltr">The substance of today’s decree is not of immense personal importance to me. The law can recognize as marriage whatever sexual attachments and living arrangements it wishes, and can accord them favorable civil consequences, from tax treatment to rights of inheritance. Those civil consequences — and the public approval that conferring the name of marriage evidences — can perhaps have adverse social effects, but no more adverse than the effects of many other controversial laws. So it is not of special importance to me what the law says about marriage.</p><p dir="ltr">It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact — and the furthest extension one can even imagine — of the Court’s claimed power to create “liberties” that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to mention. This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">Justice Clarence Thomas, also in dissent, endorsed Scalia’s arguments and added that the ruling undermined the First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom by reducing the ability of religious institutions to define marriage.</p><p dir="ltr">Justice Samuel Alito repeated the main themes of the dissenters above and added:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">Today’s decision usurps the constitutional right of the people to decide whether to keep or alter the traditional understanding of marriage. The decision will also have other important consequences.</p><p dir="ltr">It will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy. In the course of its opinion, the majority compares traditional marriage laws to laws that denied equal treatment for African-Americans and women. The implications of this analogy will be exploited by those who are determined to stamp out every vestige of dissent.</p></blockquote>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/us-supreme-court-rules-all-states-must-recognize-same-sex-marriages#commentsNationCourtsGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNLGBTsame-sex marriageFri, 26 Jun 2015 16:04:27 +0000Eric Black92798 at http://www.minnpost.comIn upholding ACA subsidies, Supreme Court majority decided that context mattershttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/upholding-aca-subsidies-supreme-court-majority-decided-context-matters
<p>The Supreme Court today preserved the Affordable Care Act by a 6-3 ruling written by Chief Justice John Roberts. The three dissenters were Justices Antonin Scalia (who wrote the dissent) and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.</p><p><a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-114_qol1.pdf">The full decision and dissent are available here</a>.</p><p>The case turned on the question of whether the federal tax credits, which are necessary to enable millions of Americans to afford health insurance, are limited to those buying health insurance from states that have set up their own online health care marketplaces (called “exchanges”) or whether the language that implies such limits was merely sloppy drafting.</p><p>Thirty-six states have declined to set up their own exchanges. If the plaintiffs had won this case, the federal subsidies would have been unavailable in those states, and the mandate requiring everyone to get insured or pay a fine would have been essentially removed.&nbsp;It is hard to believe that this was what Congress intended, but the Act says in several places that the subsidies are available to a person who buys insurance through “an exchange established by the State.”</p><p>Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts wrote that:</p><blockquote><p style="padding-left: 30px;">When read in context, the phrase "an Exchange established by the State" is properly viewed as ambiguous. … The Affordable Care Act … contains more than a few examples of inartful drafting …</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">[A] fundamental canon of statutory construction [is] that the words of a statute must be read in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme.”</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">Given that the text is ambiguous, the Court must look to the broader structure of the Act to determine whether one of Section 36B’s "permissible meanings" produces a substantive effect that is compatible with the rest of the law.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">The combination of no tax credits [the subsidies to help millions of people afford insurance are in the form of tax credits] and an ineffective coverage requirement [this is a reference to the likelihood that the mandate requiring people to get insurance would also disappear if the plaintiffs prevailed] could well push a State’s individual insurance market into a death spiral. [“Death spiral” refers to how an insurance market becomes so imbalanced that it collapses.] It is implausible that Congress meant the Act to operate in this manner …</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">Petitioners’ plain-meaning arguments are strong, but the Act’s context and structure compel the conclusion that Section 36B allows tax credits for insurance purchased on any Exchange created under the Act. Those credits are necessary for the Federal Exchanges to function like their State Exchange counterparts, and to avoid the type of calamitous result that Congress plainly meant to avoid.</p></blockquote><p>Writing for the minority, Justice Scalia went sarcastic. Thus:</p><blockquote><p style="padding-left: 30px;">The Court holds that when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act says "Exchange established by the State" it means "Exchange established by the State or the Federal Government." That is of course quite absurd, and the Court’s 21 pages of explanation make it no less so…</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">This case requires us to decide whether someone who buys insurance on an Exchange established by the Secretary [meaning the secretary of Health and Human Services, meaning exchanges created by the feds in states that declined to establish their own] gets tax credits.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">You would think the answer would be obvious — so obvious there would hardly be a need for the Supreme Court to hear a case about it.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is "established by the State." It is hard to come up with a clearer way to limit tax credits to state Exchanges than to use the words "established by the State." And it is hard to come up with a reason to include the words "by the State" other than the purpose of limiting credits to state Exchanges.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">&nbsp;"[T]he plain, obvious, and rational meaning of a statute is always to be preferred to any curious, narrow, hidden sense that nothing but the exigency of a hard case and the ingenuity and study of an acute and powerful intellect would discover." [This is a quote from a 1925 Supreme Court ruling in Lynch v. Alworth-Stephens Co.]</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">Under all the usual rules of interpretation, in short, the Government should lose this case. But normal rules of interpretation seem always to yield to the overriding principle of the present Court: The Affordable Care Act must be saved.</p></blockquote>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/upholding-aca-subsidies-supreme-court-majority-decided-context-matters#commentsCourtsAffordable Care ActU.S. Supreme CourtThu, 25 Jun 2015 16:10:12 +0000Eric Black92780 at http://www.minnpost.comThe what and why of King v. Burwell — and what's at stake for health-care access http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/what-and-why-king-v-burwell-and-whats-stake-health-care-access
<p>Before the end of the week, the U.S. Supreme Court will issue a ruling in <i>King v. Burwell</i>, a case about the meaning of one provision in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which is often called Obamacare. A few things to get settled in your mind as we await the ruling.</p><p>The King ruling may have little to do with the Constitution because this is not a case about the constitutionality of the ACA, and the court will almost certainly not strike down the whole law. The Supreme Court already ruled, 5-4, that the law was constitutional.</p><p>Rather it is a case of statutory construction (or interpretation) focused on one phrase that appears several times in the more than 2,000-page law. So in all likelihood, the law will remain in effect, although it could be weakened and complicated.</p><p>If the Supreme Court rules for the plaintiffs, millions of Americans who qualify for federal subsidies under the current understanding of the law and who live in the 36 states that have not set up their own state-run health insurance “exchanges” could lose those subsidies and lose their ability to afford health insurance.</p><p>Since the problem is not a constitutional one, it would also be well within the power of Congress to fix the whole problem for the whole country by fixing the language that created the problem. That won’t happen – at least not permanently – in a Republican-controlled Congress. But Republican leaders have talked about fixing it temporarily – so that the subsidies could continue to flow — until 2017, when Pres. Obama will be gone from the White House. In 2017, Repubs hope, a Republican will be in the Oval Office so they could repeal and replace the law with a Republican program, the details of which are unknown.</p><p>Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell (technically the defendant in the case) has told Congress that if the court rules for the plaintiffs there’s little the Obama administration can do by itself to mitigate the disruption of the program and it will be Congress’ job to repair the damage.</p><p>It’s also true that Obamacare will continue to function, pretty much as before, in the 14 states – predominantly those controlled by Democrats (including Minnesota) – that have set up their own health care exchanges. Even if the plaintiffs win the case, residents of those states will remain eligible for federal subsidies to afford health insurance.</p><p>The other 36 states – mostly those at least partially controlled by Republicans – could solve the subsidy problem for their residents by setting up their own exchanges even if Congress does nothing.</p><p>I don’t know if many – or any – of them will do so. Hatred for Obamacare is so high in some Republican circles that many probably will not. But it could start to look pretty deranged to allow millions of currently insured people to become uninsured by refusing the exercise an option that the law clearly provides. Through their own federal taxes, residents of those states would be subsidizing those in other states to get the subsidies that needy people in their own states could not get.</p><p>Perhaps at this point a refresher would useful on the statutory language at the heart of the case.</p><p>The ACA provides for Americans (who are not members of large pools like those with jobs that provide insurance) to shop for health insurance in state-based “exchanges.” An exchange is an online computerized market that is designed to make it easy for customers to compare costs and coverage of the health care policies available within their state. Access to the federal subsidies to help many of those folks afford their insurance also flow through the exchanges.</p><p>Some states, including Minnesota, have set up their own state-run exchanges. But for the 36 states that declined to set up their own exchanges, the law allowed the feds to operate one for them. (This is the famous, or infamous, healthcare.gov.) &nbsp;</p><h4>It’s the text</h4><p>Anti-Obamacare activists, looking for ways to weaken or challenge the law, found a recurring phrase that says the subsidies (technically tax credits) are given to citizens who enrolled in insurance policies “through <i>an Exchange established by the State</i> under … the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”</p><p>The case basically comes down to the question of whether that language means that those buying insurance from exchanges established by the federal government in states that did not set up their own exchanges are eligible for the subsidies.</p><p>If not, millions of Americans (I see estimates floating around the 5 to 8 million range) would be unable to afford their insurance. The ACA also mandates that people obtain health insurance (or pay a fee), but the mandate would be thrown into question if it applies to millions who can’t afford insurance because they can’t get subsidies that they could get if their states would set up the exchanges.</p><p>No one who was involved in writing the law says that this was their intent. But the plaintiffs did find at least one statement from one MIT economist named Jonathan Gruber, who worked as a consultant on the ACA, that seems to support the plaintiffs’ case. On a panel, before the ACA passed, Gruber said:</p><blockquote><p>In the law, it says if the states don’t provide them, the federal backstop will. The federal government has been sort of slow in putting out its backstop, I think partly because they want to sort of squeeze the states to do it.&nbsp;I think what’s important to remember politically about this, is if you’re a state and you don’t set up an Exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits.&nbsp;But your citizens still pay the taxes that support this bill. So you’re essentially saying to your citizens, you’re going to pay all the taxes to help all the other states in the country. I hope that’s a blatant enough political reality that states will get their act together and realize there are billions of dollars at stake here in setting up these Exchanges, and that they’ll do it.</p></blockquote><p>Here’s <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118851/jonathan-gruber-halbig-says-quote-exchanges-was-mistake">a piece that provides the full text, &nbsp;in context, of what Gruber said that day.</a></p><p>In the same piece Gruber said that what he said was “a mistake.” He says the same about how the language came to appear in the bill. Congress made “a mistake.”</p><p>Gruber is not a member of Congress. If it’s the “intent of Congress” you’re after, something that one man, not a member of Congress, said one day on a panel is not exactly proof positive of what Congress “intended.” If you think hard about it, you’ll probably conclude that very few, if any, members of Congress were aware of this issue or this language. But if you were on the plaintiffs’ side of this case and were looking for a way to undermine the functioning of Obamacare, you can imagine how excited you would have been when this Gruber transcript emerged.</p><p>Justice Antonin Scalia is the leader of the court’s “textualist” wing, which refers to a belief that the text of the statute is the best way to understand what the law means as opposed to other considerations such as what the authors of the language may have “intended.” For a textualist, the several references in the law to “an Exchange established by the State” is a pretty fat pitch down the middle of the plate. I will be shocked if Scalia does not vote for the plaintiffs.</p><h4>No commandeering</h4><p>There’s one more possible outcome that has received some notice. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is often the swing vote in closely divided cases, said during oral arguments in this case that even if the plaintiffs are correct in their interpretation of the “exchanges established by the state” language, it may be constitutionally impossible to rule in their favor.</p><p>In the original case testing the constitutionality of the overall Patient Protection Act, Kennedy voted to strike down the law on what you might call states rights grounds.</p><p>Under our state/federal system, there are limits to what the feds can coerce the states to do. Previous Supreme Court cases have established that the feds must not “commandeer” a state government to enforce a federal law. In voting to strike down the entire Obamacare law, Kennedy relied on the belief that the law violated their principle in various ways.</p><p>But the law was ruled constitutional in the original case. And Kennedy is not attempting to revisit that decision. To Kennedy, if the whole law is constitutional, then it must not and therefore does not “commandeer” the states. If it’s true (as Gruber suggested when he made his “mistake”) that the central phrase at issue in the new case is designed to coerce states to set up their own exchanges, then that would be unconstitutional.</p><p>At the oral arguments in <i>King v. Burwell</i>, Justice Kennedy said to the plaintiffs' attorney that, according to the plaintiffs' theory: “the States are being told either create your own Exchange, or we’ll send your insurance market into a death spiral.” To Kennedy, if the plaintiffs are correct in the meaning and intent of the language, then the law involves unconstitutional commandeering. So to rule in favor of the plaintiffs, he would have to endorse leaving in place an unconstitutional provision.</p><p>In <a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/03/05/anthony_kennedys_twisted_logic_why_scotus_may_get_obamacare_right_and_wrong/">this piece from Salon</a>, written at the time of the oral arguments, Andrew Koppelman wrote that:</p><p>“[Kennedy] was firm about the implications of that – and here is the most significant thing that anyone said in this week’s argument:&nbsp; ‘It seems to me that under your argument, perhaps you will prevail in the plain words of the statute. [But] there’s a serious constitutional problem if we adopt your argument.’</p><p>&nbsp;Justice Sonya Sotomayor made the same point: ‘Tell me how this is not coercive in an unconstitutional way?’”&nbsp;</p><p>This is a tad circuitous. The <i>King v Burwell</i> plaintiffs would presumably love to have the law struck down as unconstitutional. But the law has already been declared constitutional, so their lawsuit seeks only to change the meaning or function of the law. So, according to the questioning of Kennedy and Sotomayor, they cannot advocate for a meaning/function that would itself make the constitutional law unconstitutional.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/what-and-why-king-v-burwell-and-whats-stake-health-care-access#commentsWed, 24 Jun 2015 15:55:02 +0000Eric Black92759 at http://www.minnpost.com‘Terrorism’ in Charleston? It’s become a meaningless propaganda termhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/terrorism-charleston-it-s-become-meaningless-propaganda-term
<p></p><p dir="ltr">I understand all the complaints and criticism against those who are declining to call the despicable killing of innocents at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., an act of “terrorism.” And I agree with those who suspect and believe that somehow it’s hard in post-9/11 America to be labeled a terrorist if you are not a Muslim attacking or killing white people. But I agree even more with Glenn Greenwald who argues that instead of using the term more broadly, we should use it a lot less and maybe not at all because “terrorism” has become a “meaningless propaganda term.”</p><p dir="ltr"><a href="https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/19/refusal-call-charleston-shootings-terrorism-shows-meaningless-propaganda-term/">Greenwald wrote</a>:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">The point here is not, as <a href="http://phasezero.gawker.com/the-charleston-murders-are-absolutely-terrorism-1712385184?rev=1434729252010&amp;utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_twitter&amp;utm_source=gawker_twitter&amp;utm_medium=socialflow">some very confused commentators</a> suggested, to seek an expansion of the term “terrorism” beyond its current application. As someone who has spent the last decade more or less exclusively devoted to documenting the abuses and manipulations that term enables, the last thing I want is an expansion of its application.</p><p dir="ltr">But what I also don’t want is for non-Muslims to&nbsp;rest in&nbsp;their privileged nest, satisfied that the term and its accompanying abuses is only for that marginalized group. And what I especially don’t want is to have this glaring, damaging mythology persist that the term “terrorism” is some sort of objectively discernible, consistently applied designation of a particularly hideous kind of violence.</p><p dir="ltr">I’m eager to have the term recognized for what it is: a completely malleable, manipulated, vapid term of propaganda that has no consistent application whatsoever. Recognition of that reality is vital to draining the term of its potency.</p><p dir="ltr">The examples proving the utter malleability of the term “terrorism” are far too numerous to chronicle here. But over the past decade alone, it’s been used by Western political and media figures to condemn&nbsp;Muslims who used&nbsp;<a href="https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/07/guantanamos-youngest-prisoner-finally-jail/">violence against an invading and occupying</a>&nbsp;force in Afghanistan, against others who <a href="https://books.google.com.br/books?id=yy__czLAfwMC&amp;pg=PA105&amp;lpg=PA105&amp;dq=2008+indictment+material+support+iraq+insurgency&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=DLo658l2Kk&amp;sig=Dd493cGbCOiZhOTPz8mxgUgUDbQ&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=d1OEVdTLHYzt-QHN0YKwCw&amp;ved=0CCMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&amp;q=2008%20indictment%20material%20support%20iraq%20insurgency&amp;f=false">raised funds to help Iraqis</a> fight against an invading and occupying military&nbsp;in their country, and for others who attack&nbsp;<a href="http://www.stripes.com/news/lawmakers-again-push-for-fort-hood-shootings-to-be-labeled-terrorism-1.219874">soldiers in an army that is fighting many wars</a>. In other words, any violence by Muslims against the West is inherently “terrorism,” even if targeted only at soldiers at war and/or designed to resist invasion and occupation.</p><p dir="ltr">By stark contrast, no violence by the West against Muslims can possibly be “terrorism,” no matter how brutal, inhumane or indiscriminately civilian-killing. The U.S. can call its invasion of Baghdad “Shock and Awe” as a <a href="http://www.nathannewman.org/log/archives/000873.shtml">classic declaration of terrorism intent</a>, or <a href="http://www.livingunderdrones.org/">fly killer drones permanently over</a>&nbsp;terrorized villages and cities, or engage in <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-legacy-of-us-assault-on-fallujah-worse-than-hiroshima-2034065.html">generation-lasting atrocities in Fallujah</a>, or arm and fund Israeli and Saudi destruction of helpless civilian populations, and none of that, of course, can possibly be called “terrorism.” It just has the wrong perpetrators and the wrong victims.</p></blockquote>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/terrorism-charleston-it-s-become-meaningless-propaganda-term#commentsNationWorldGeographyPoliticsINNTue, 23 Jun 2015 14:08:08 +0000Eric Black92711 at http://www.minnpost.comIowa and New Hampshire should get over themselveshttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/iowa-and-new-hampshire-should-get-over-themselves
<p dir="ltr">Every presidential election cycle, one reads several stories (<a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2015/06/17/iowa-republicans-fret-primary-power-loss/Sz0sgqTRE0Smg7RFjWNtUI/story.html">like this one from today's Boston Globe</a>) in which Iowans and New Hampshirites (I believe we are supposed to call them<a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Granite+Stater"> Granite Staters</a>) worry aloud and/or complain that some development might undermine their special first-in-the-nation role in choosing the major party nominees.</p><p dir="ltr">Everyone wants to feel special, but I wish they would get over themselves. The Iowa/New Hampshire special role is one of those (many) strange quirks of the U.S. system that no one ever intended and that distorts the process. The rest of the country never agreed to this anointment of two (perfectly nice but no more special than the rest) states to have a permanent special status. Other than a lot of sentimental hooey, there is no justification for it.</p><p dir="ltr">Inevitably, the special role leads to a bunch of factors (the kind of factors that give a candidate special appeal in those two states) being given outsized importance. During non-election years, those with presidential ambitions have to ask themselves of various policies: “How will this play in Iowa?”</p><p dir="ltr">If you happen to own a TV or radio station in Iowa, the special role is great for your business. If you crave the opportunity to meet in small groups with presidential candidates, you will get it. If you happen to live in a state that is neither a "swing state" in the fall nor a traditional "key state" in the primary season (Minnesota, despite always ranking at or near the top in voter participation, is neither), you will seldom see a candidate.</p><p dir="ltr">(When I covered the Iowa caucuses one cycle, I was treated to an old Iowegian joke about wishing the candidates would get off their lawn so they can mow it.)</p><p dir="ltr">It's not hard to think of a better, fairer system. The role of being an early caucus or primary state should rotate so everyone gets a turn. We could have a rational system in which states would be grouped into clusters (let's say five at a time) and over the course of 10 cycles, each group would have a turn to be first and a turn to be 10th. That's just one fairly obvious idea. There are others.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/iowa-and-new-hampshire-should-get-over-themselves#commentsNationElection 2016GeographyPoliticsINNThu, 18 Jun 2015 15:34:26 +0000Eric Black92659 at http://www.minnpost.comPay attention to Donald Trump, or don'thttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/pay-attention-donald-trump-or-dont
<p dir="ltr">A lot of smart pundits have pronounced the contest for the Republican presidential nomination to be wide open, up for grabs and impossible to predict. There are several obvious reasons for that (and, I might snottily add, predicting the outcome of races is a highly overrated activity anyway).</p><p dir="ltr">But Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post is<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/06/17/why-no-one-should-take-donald-trump-seriously-in-1-very-simple-chart/?wpisrc=nl_pmpol&amp;wpmm=1"> willing to make one big pronouncement.</a> Donald Trump, who announced his candidacy Tuesday, has no chance of becoming the Republican nominee. He backs this up with one statistic (really just a poll result). In a May Washington Post/ABC poll, Trump scores a net approval rating of negative 42 percent. And that's among Republicans, the group that collectively will decide who will occupy the ballot position of &nbsp;Republican nominee. "Net" means that 65 percent of Republicans polled said they had an overall negative view of Trump and 23 said positive. That's a net of negative 42 percent. Seven other Republican candidates whose names were included in the poll have net positive ratings. (Marco Rubio and Mike Huckabee had the highest net positives.) The only net negative, other than Trump, was Chris Christie, but even that one was within a rounding error of zero.</p><p dir="ltr">Cillizza's pronouncement on Trump's situation (and on what happens when Trump's lips move) go like this:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">You cannot and do not win anything when your numbers look like Trump's. I can't say it any more clearly than that. There's nothing you can say or do — not that Trump would ever even consider going on an image rehabilitation tour — to change how people feel about you. Republicans know Trump. And they really, really don't like him.</p><p>Trump, of course, knows this. His goal is attention, not winning. And in truth, even that would be fine if Trump had an issue (or issues) that he cared about and wanted to draw attention to via his presidential bid. He doesn't. He just says stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. And it's not clear that he's spent more than the five seconds before he speaks thinking about what he's going to say.</p></blockquote>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/pay-attention-donald-trump-or-dont#commentsNationElection 2016GeographyPoliticsINNDonald TrumpWed, 17 Jun 2015 21:38:58 +0000Eric Black92646 at http://www.minnpost.comHillary Clinton takes a step toward substancehttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/hillary-clinton-takes-step-toward-substance
<p dir="ltr">Over the last few weeks, I’ve been dissing Hillary Clinton for a lack of substance in her nascent presidential campaign.</p><p dir="ltr">Heading into her big “kickoff” speech Friday in New York, the advance hype suggested that she would talk mostly about her mother’s hard early life. This was intended as a way to repair some of the damage Clinton has taken recently on the famous poll question that asks voters whether a particular candidate “cares about people like you.”</p><p dir="ltr">Because I am a substance fanatic, I expected to loathe the speech as one more bit of emotional manipulation designed to postpone further the day when Clinton would have to start outlining her concrete policy positions. Such postponements fit the cynical strategy of a front-runner who doesn’t want to sound too liberal during the primary campaign and then have to tack back to the center during the general election campaign.</p><p dir="ltr">Maybe my expectations were too low. But I liked and respected the speech and would say it was a huge step toward substance. It was a strong attack on recent Republican policies and policy proposals; a strong statement of values and goals for the next four years.</p><p dir="ltr">It was very liberal. She strongly praised President Obama, whom Republicans will do everything they can to vilify. She rattled the cages of Wall Street and the Super Rich. It was strong on populist rhetoric and goals to make things better for the non-wealthy.</p><p dir="ltr">But the speech was light on concrete proposals and on ways to pay for the kinds of programs she endorsed. I hope that she (and everyone seeking the presidency) will go further to outline real changes that she favors and, for those proposals that will require spending, how she will pay for them.</p><p dir="ltr">The speech certainly will give the right some things to fear, to shoot down and to hype.</p><p dir="ltr"><a href="http://time.com/3920332/transcript-full-text-hillary-clinton-campaign-launch/">The full text is here.</a></p><p dir="ltr">Here are some excerpts:</p><h4 dir="ltr">On prosperity</h4><p dir="ltr">Clinton referred to “the fundamental American belief that real and lasting prosperity must be built by all and shared by all.”</p><p dir="ltr">Standing in a park named for Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous “Four Freedoms” speech, Clinton said of FDR: “He said there’s no mystery about what it takes to build a strong and prosperous America: ‘Equality of opportunity… Jobs for those who can work… Security for those who need it… The ending of special privilege for the few… The preservation of civil liberties for all… a wider and constantly rising standard of living.’</p><p dir="ltr">“That still sounds good to me. It’s America’s basic bargain. If you do your part you ought to be able to get ahead. And when everybody does their part, America gets ahead too.</p><p dir="ltr">“When President Obama honored the bargain, we pulled back from the brink of Depression, saved the auto industry, provided health care to 16 million working people, and replaced the jobs we lost faster than after a financial crash.”</p><p dir="ltr">But under recent Republican administrations, Clinton said, “Instead of an economy built by every American, for every American, we were told that if we let those at the top pay lower taxes and bend the rules, their success would trickle down to everyone else. What happened [under those policies]?</p><p dir="ltr">“Well, instead of a balanced budget with surpluses that could have eventually paid off our national debt, the Republicans twice cut taxes for the wealthiest, borrowed money from other countries to pay for two wars, and family incomes dropped. You know where we ended up.</p><p dir="ltr">“While many of you are working multiple jobs to make ends meet, you see the top 25 hedge fund managers making more than all of America’s kindergarten teachers combined. And, often paying a lower tax rate.”</p><p dir="ltr">“So, you have to wonder: ‘When does my hard work pay off? When does my family get ahead? When?’</p><p dir="ltr">“I say now. Prosperity can’t be just for CEOs and hedge fund managers. Democracy can’t be just for billionaires and corporations. Prosperity and democracy are part of your basic bargain too.</p><p dir="ltr">“You brought our country back. Now it’s time — your time — to secure the gains and move ahead. And, you know what? America can’t succeed unless you succeed. That is why I am running for President of the United States.”</p><h4 dir="ltr">On GOP policies</h4><p dir="ltr">“… These Republicans trip over themselves promising lower taxes for the wealthy and fewer rules for the biggest corporations without regard for how that will make income inequality even worse. We’ve heard this tune before. And we know how it turns out.</p><p dir="ltr">“They pledge to wipe out tough rules on Wall Street, rather than rein in the banks that are still too risky, courting future failures. In a case that can only be considered mass amnesia.</p><p dir="ltr">“They want to take away health insurance from more than 16 million Americans without offering any credible alternative.</p><p dir="ltr">“They shame and blame women, rather than respect our right to make our own reproductive health decisions. They want to put immigrants, who work hard and pay taxes, at risk of deportation. And they turn their backs on gay people who love each other…</p><p dir="ltr">“But, here’s the good news: There are allies for change everywhere who know we can’t stand by while inequality increases, wages stagnate, and the promise of America dims. We should welcome the support of all Americans who want to go forward together with us.</p><p dir="ltr">“There are public officials who know Americans need a better deal, business leaders who want higher pay for employees, equal pay for women and no discrimination against the LGBT community either. There are leaders of finance who want less short-term trading and more long-term investing. There are union leaders who are investing their own pension funds in putting people to work to build tomorrow’s economy. We need everyone to come to the table and work with us.”</p><h4 dir="ltr">On specific policy proposals</h4><p dir="ltr">As I mentioned above, Clinton didn’t commit herself to a lot of specific policy proposals. But she promised to do so “in the coming weeks.” And she needs to move past populist adjectives to actual ideas that can be legislated and implemented. But the goals she outlined were powerfully evocative, for example:</p><p dir="ltr">“Reward businesses who invest in long term value rather than the quick buck – because that leads to higher growth for the economy, higher wages for workers, and yes, bigger profits, everybody will have a better time.</p><p dir="ltr">“Rewrite the tax code so it rewards hard work and investments here at home, not quick trades or stashing profits overseas.</p><p dir="ltr">“Give new incentives to companies that give their employees a fair share of the profits their hard work earns…</p><p dir="ltr">“And we will make America the clean energy superpower of the 21st century. Developing renewable power – wind, solar, advanced biofuels… Building cleaner power plants, smarter electric grids, greener buildings… Using additional fees and royalties from fossil fuel extraction to protect the environment…”</p><h4 dir="ltr">On investing in the future</h4><p dir="ltr">The next few ideas are things that will cost big bucks. She implied above that she wants to tax the rich, but with no specifics yet. Clinton obviously owes us much more detail on how she proposes to pay for ideas like…</p><p dir="ltr">“Building an economy for tomorrow also requires investing in our most important asset, our people, beginning with our youngest. That’s why I will propose that we make preschool and quality childcare available to every child in America. And I want you to remember this, because to me, this is absolutely the most-compelling argument why we should do this. Research tells us how much early learning in the first five years of life can impact lifelong success. In fact, 80 percent of the brain is developed by age three.</p><p dir="ltr">“Let’s make college affordable and available to all …and lift the crushing burden of student debt.</p><p dir="ltr">“Let’s provide lifelong learning for workers to gain or improve skills the economy requires, setting up many more Americans for success.”</p><h4 dir="ltr">On America’s families</h4><p dir="ltr">Clinton said she wants to “strengthen America’s families” with measures like:</p><p dir="ltr">“Parents need more support and flexibility to do their job at work and at home… I believe you should have the right to earn paid sick days.</p><p dir="ltr">“I believe you should receive your work schedule with enough notice to arrange childcare or take college courses to get ahead.</p><p dir="ltr">“I believe you should look forward to retirement with confidence, not anxiety.</p><p dir="ltr">“That you should have the peace of mind that your health care will be there when you need it, without breaking the bank.</p><p dir="ltr">“I believe we should offer paid family leave so no one has to choose between keeping a paycheck and caring for a new baby or a sick relative.</p><p dir="ltr">“And it is way past time to end the outrage of so many women still earning less than men on the job — and women of color often making even less.”</p><p dir="ltr">She wants to “offer hard-working, law-abiding immigrant families a path to citizenship. Not second-class status. And, we should ban discrimination against LGBT Americans and their families so they can live, learn, marry, and work just like everybody else.</p><h4 dir="ltr">On money in politics</h4><p dir="ltr">She attacked the demise of the post-Watergate campaign finance laws since the Supreme Court ruled on the <em>Citizens United</em> case. “We have to stop the endless flow of secret, unaccountable money that is distorting our elections, corrupting our political process, and drowning out the voices of our people.”</p><p dir="ltr">She implied that she would use U.S. Supreme Court appointments to move in this direction and specified that “If necessary, I will support a constitutional amendment to undo the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United.”</p><p>As she must know, the requirements for constitutional amendments are unimaginably high, especially with the current polarized state of the parties.</p><p><strong>A couple of updates/contrary views</strong></p><p>As is obvious above, I thought that (especially compared to her previous radio silence on all matters of substance) that Clinton hit a lot of good themes, but still owes us details and concrete proposals. Several voices on the left disagree. Sen. Bernie Sanders (who is, of course, one of her chief opponents for the Dem nomination) has hit her hard for not taking a position on the big Pacific trade deal. (He opposes it. She takes no position on the final deal, since that is still being negotiated, but has also been evasive on whether she supports Obama's request for a bill that subjects the final deal to an unamendable up-or-down vote.)</p><p>Robert Reich, in a tweet (reproduced <a href="http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/30736-grading-hillary-clintons-economic-speech">here on Reader Supported News</a>) gave Clinton an "A" for diagnosing the problem with the U.S. economy but a "C" or worse for specifying how she would fix it.</p><p>Molly Ball of the Atlantic issued a major warning to those who take the speech as evidence that Clinton has taken sides in the class wars. Her post, headlined<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/hillary-clintons-fainthearted-populism/395837/"> "Hillary Clinton's Fainthearted Populism,</a>" argues that even in diagnosing the cause of growing inequality, Clinton failed to even lay the groundwork for strong progressive policies. Wrote Ball:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"<span><span>Here are some things Clinton didn’t say: She didn’t directly call for higher taxes on the rich. She didn’t directly blame Wall Street or financial deregulation for the economic crisis. (In fact, she mentioned Wall Street and banks just once in the speech.) She didn’t say, as [Sen. Elizabeth] Warren frequently does, that 'the game is rigged' against ordinary Americans. She didn’t mention the gap between rich and poor at all, and her two mentions of inequality were indirect. CEO benefits and hedge-fund salaries weren’t directly attacked, but used as a point of contrast. Rather than rage against the perfidy and greed of the rich and powerful, as Warren routinely does, or insist that economic villains must be punished, Clinton posited that a better economy could lift all boats—that under her policies, 'everybody will have a better time.'"</span></span></p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/hillary-clinton-takes-step-toward-substance#commentsBarack ObamaPovertyCampaign FinanceNationElection 2016ImmigrationGeographyPoliticsUrban AffairsINNLGBTHillary ClintonMon, 15 Jun 2015 13:49:11 +0000Eric Black92604 at http://www.minnpost.comHappy Birthday Jeannette Rankin. Why aren't you more famous?http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/happy-birthday-jeannette-rankin-why-arent-you-more-famous
<p dir="ltr">Jeannette Rankin was the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress, which is Exhibit A for why she should be more famous than she is. I&nbsp;<a href="http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2013/08/women-and-politics-amazing-tale-jeannette-rankin" target="_blank">wrote about her</a>&nbsp;a couple of years ago, but I'm doing so again because of Exhibit A and Exhibit B (her political career was wonderfully strange) and Exhibit C (it's her birthday). If she was still alive, Rankin would be 135 years old today.</p><p dir="ltr">Rankin was a lifelong pacifist and suffragist. She said the two were related because she believed that if women had more political power, there would be fewer wars.</p><p dir="ltr">Here's my explanation for Exhibit B, the wonderful strangeness of her public career:</p><p dir="ltr">Rankin was born and grew up in Montana and was elected as a Republican to the state's at-large seat in the U.S. House on her first try in 1916. (The 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote, hadn't been ratified yet, but women could vote in Montana.) The day she was sworn in as the first woman elected to Congress was the day President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war on Germany. It passed 373-50. Rankin was one of the 50, and her vote wasn't received well back home. A Helena newspaper called her "a dupe of the Kaiser, a member of the Hun army... and a crying schoolgirl."&nbsp;Her vote cost her another term, but she expressed no regret.</p><p dir="ltr">She spent the next two decades lecturing on pacifism, advocating for children's welfare, for consumer protection, for a ban on child labor and for the the first federal social-welfare program created explicitly for women and children. Amazingly, at age 60, she staged a political comeback and was elected in 1940 to a second term in the U.S. House. During her first year she had to vote on President Franklin D. Roosevelt's request for a declaration of war against Japan.</p><p dir="ltr">Personally, I'm a peacenik but not a pacifist. In the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, I would've voted aye on that one. But Rankin believed war is never the best alternative and she voted nay, this time the only one in the House to do so on a 388-1 vote.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeannette_Rankin" target="_blank">&nbsp;According to the Wikipedia article on her life</a>:</p><p dir="ltr">"After the vote an angry mob followed her as she left the Capitol building, and she was forced to take refuge in a telephone booth until U.S. Capitol Police could rescue her. Two days later a similar war declaration against Germany and Italy came to vote; Rankin abstained. Her political career effectively over, she retired in 1942 rather than face a near-certain re-election defeat."</p><p dir="ltr">Rankin went on cheerfully advocating for pacifism. In 1968, a coalition of women's peace groups calling themselves the Jeannette Rankin Brigade marched on Washington to protest the Vietnam War. Rankin herself (she was 87 and still in fine fettle as you can see in the<a href="http://the1968exhibit.org/node/3105?format=popup" target="_blank">&nbsp;short video clip embedded here</a>) led them by foot from Union Station to the steps of the Capitol.</p><p>Rankin died in 1973, shortly before her 93rd birthday. Her New York Times obit said that until her final illness, &nbsp;“her only concession to age was a cane and a slight weariness at seeing the ideas she had advocated for seven decades treated as if they were still radically new.”</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/happy-birthday-jeannette-rankin-why-arent-you-more-famous#commentsArmed ForcesCongressNationWorldGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNThu, 11 Jun 2015 13:45:32 +0000Eric Black92565 at http://www.minnpost.comHow today’s elections are won — and the bad consequenceshttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/how-today-s-elections-are-won-and-bad-consequences
<p dir="ltr">There’s a danger. Well, perhaps more than one danger, but the one I’m thinking of at the moment is the danger of “motivated reasoning” aided by the twin demons of selective perception and confirmation bias. At some fairly superficial level, most of us believe it’s important to keep an open mind, listen to new evidence and consider the possibility that one or more of our beliefs is incorrect, at which point we are supposed to change our minds.</p><p dir="ltr">But in practice too many of us read and listen to those with whom we expect to agree. And when we do listen to those with whom we disagree, we are motivated to disbelieve their argument and treat their facts more skeptically. Although I try to be an exception to the dangers of motivated reasoning, selective perception and confirmation bias, I mostly fail. (Or maybe it’s just that my beliefs are just, you know, right.)</p><p dir="ltr">For example, as regular readers of Black Ink have noticed, I’m fairly convinced that the U.S. system of politics and government is slowly but steadily breaking down. We have a system that — more than pretty much any other in the world — requires compromise across party lines for the government to function. But our parties have mostly lost the ability to compromise. I do believe that most of the fault for this is on the right/Republican side, where the notion of compromise is more frequently treated as a form of betrayal or surrender. All of this is available for more discussion as we head into our ridiculously long and very enlightening presidential campaign season.</p><p dir="ltr">But Tuesday, <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/way-win-elections-it-makes-governing-harder-n371521?cid=eml_nfr_20150609">the regular morning note from NBC’s politics crew, starting with Chuck Todd, focused on the connection</a> between the modern way of winning presidential elections (which has less and less to do with appealing to moderate swing voters) and the gridlock in Washington. First you ignore most of the country because only a relative few swing states matter. But even in those states, you don’t put most of your effort into persuading moderate swing voters. The new formula focuses much more on identifying people who would vote for your candidate, if they vote, and then motivating those voters to vote. Those are, in the passage below, “the voters you need.” And you motivate them by scaring them about the consequences of the other side winning.</p><p dir="ltr">From that article:</p><blockquote><p>David Plouffe, Obama's former top political strategist, summed it up this way: “If you run a campaign trying to appeal to 60 to 70 percent of the electorate, you're not going to run a very compelling campaign for the voters you need.” In today's highly polarized political world, this is how you win elections — by motivating your base and by recognizing there are few swing voters left. But it also makes governing harder, especially when the parties are trading electoral victories every two years (with Democrats benefitting from presidential turnouts, and with Republicans benefitting from midterm turnouts). When you have data-driven candidates appealing to win 51% of voters, it means that a president's job-approval rating is never going to get much higher than that, and it means that bipartisan policy goals (like the TPP free-trade agreement) are the exception rather than the rule.</p></blockquote>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/how-today-s-elections-are-won-and-bad-consequences#commentsNationElection 2016GeographyPoliticsINNWed, 10 Jun 2015 15:22:05 +0000Eric Black92553 at http://www.minnpost.comAs old journalism norms fade, debate over Edward Snowden gets personalhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/old-journalism-norms-fade-debate-over-edward-snowden-gets-personal
<p dir="ltr">The norms of old-fashioned “objectivity” that dominated late-20th century journalism could sometimes get in the way of being bravely blunt or having a brutally honest fact-based argument. For example, reporters would sometimes shrink from writing certain things that were true and probative for fear of exposing their forbidden ideology. The old norms haven’t completely disappeared, but they are much weaker now and, on balance, I don’t miss them much.</p><p dir="ltr">Lawyer/journalist/author <a href="https://firstlook.org/theintercept/staff/glenn-greenwald/">Glenn Greenwald</a>, who writes mostly for <a href="https://firstlook.org/theintercept/">The Intercept</a>, is an example of someone who has done great work within the new freedom in which the boundaries between facts and arguments are sometimes blurrier, making it easier for a writer to say what he’s trying to say.</p><p dir="ltr">Greenwald was a key figure in the plot by Edward Snowden to leak secret government files that brought to light the extent of the federal government’s surveillance techniques into ordinary telephone traffic. The feds would like to put Snowden on trial for what he did but Snowden left the country and was given asylum in Russia where has lived for the past two years. Greenwald is in the camp that believes Snowden did something brave and useful.</p><p dir="ltr">Former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan, who used to chair the House Intelligence Committee, <a href="http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/01/snowden-says-hes-no-russian-agent">said on “Face the Nation”</a> that it was “no coincidence” that Snowden had ended up in the “loving arms” of the Russian intelligence service.</p><p dir="ltr">I <a href="http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/02/time-rep-mike-rogers-produce-some-evidence-snowden-russian-cahoots">wrote at the time</a> that he’d better be able to back that up, but Rogers never did. (Rogers has since retired.)</p><p dir="ltr">I understand that to some Snowden is a traitor, to some a hero. <em>The New York Times</em> found him at least respectable and credible enough to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/opinion/edward-snowden-the-world-says-no-to-surveillance.html?hpw&amp;rref=opinion&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;module=well-region&amp;region=bottom-well&amp;WT.nav=bottom-well">publish last week an op-ed by Snowden</a> in which he suggested that his leaks had done a lot of good, since the courts have recently struck down some the practices he exposed and “after a White House-appointed oversight board investigation found that this program had not stopped a single terrorist attack, even the president who once defended its propriety and criticized its disclosure has now ordered it terminated.”</p><h4 dir="ltr">'The Traitor’s Triumph'</h4><p dir="ltr">That was too much for Max Boot, a prominent neoconservative writer, who wrote for the righty <em>Commentary</em> <a href="https://www.commentarymagazine.com/2015/06/05/edward-snowden-new-york-times-op-ed/">magazine an attack on the Times for running the piece by Snowden</a>, whom he called a “traitor.” In fact, Boot’s piece was headlined: “The Traitor’s Triumph.”</p><p dir="ltr">Boot said the <em>Times’</em> decision was the equivalent of a newspaper during World War II running an op-ed by Tokyo Rose, or anyone publishing a piece “by Khalid Sheikh Muhammad criticizing America’s policies in the war on terror.”</p><p dir="ltr">I would call that over the top. Greenwald thought it was worse than that. He thought Boot’s piece was a lie.</p><p dir="ltr">In a harsh but well-reasoned <a href="https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/05/max-boot-commentary-magazine-lie-edward-snowden-decide/">rebuttal in The Intercept</a>, Greenwald zeroed in on errors in Boot’s piece that Greenwald labeled “lies” right in the title of the piece, which was: “Did Max Boot and Commentary Magazine Lie About Edward Snowden? You Decide.”</p><p dir="ltr">In Boot’s article, Greenwald noted, Boot wrote that Snowden has taken refuge in Russia, a country that operates “a surveillance apparatus … which far exceeds in scope anything created by any Western country.” (Greenwald doesn’t dispute that.) But then Boot added:</p><p dir="ltr">“Of course Ed Snowden is not courageous enough, or stupid enough, to criticize the dictatorship that he has defected to. It’s much easier and safer to criticize the country he betrayed from behind the protection provided by the FSB’s thugs.”</p><h4 dir="ltr">Personal attack</h4><p dir="ltr">Greenwald was unimpressed with Boot’s portrayal of Snowden as a coward, and in the course of &nbsp;rebutting the idea that Snowden was a coward, he went after Boot personally, thus:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">It is literally the supreme act of projection for Max Boot to accuse&nbsp;anyone&nbsp;of lacking courage, as this particular think tank warmonger&nbsp;is <a href="http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/10/jeremy-scahill-max-boots-father-was-a-hamster-and-his-mother-smells-of-elderberries.html">the living, breathing personification of the unique strain of American neocon cowardice</a>. Unlike Snowden — who sacrificed his liberty and unraveled his life in pursuit of his beliefs — the 45-year-old Boot has spent most of his adult life advocating for one war after the next, but always wanting to send his fellow citizens of his generation&nbsp;to die in them, while he hides in the comfort of Washington think tanks, never fighting them himself.</p><p dir="ltr">All of that is just garden-variety neocon cowardice, and it’s of course grotesque to watch someone like this call someone&nbsp;else a coward. But it’s so much worse if he lies when doing so. Did he do so here? You decide. From Snowden’s&nbsp;NYT op-ed today:</p><p dir="ltr">"Basic technical safeguards such as encryption — once considered esoteric and unnecessary — are now enabled by default in the products of pioneering companies like Apple, ensuring that even if your phone is stolen, your private life remains private. Such structural technological changes can ensure access to basic privacies beyond borders, insulating ordinary citizens from the arbitrary passage of anti-privacy laws, such as those now descending upon Russia."</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">In case there is any chance the paragraph above might strike anyone as other than a criticism by Snowden of the “dictatorship he defected to,” exactly the act that Boot said Snowden lacked the courage to do, Greenwald notes that <em>Time</em>&nbsp;magazine (presumably a neutral party in this dispute) headlined its coverage of Snowden’s piece: “Edward Snowden Hits Out at Russia’s Privacy Laws.”</p><p dir="ltr">So Boot alleged that Snowden was too cowardly to criticize Russia in a piece he wrote that was based on a Snowden piece that criticized Russia.</p><p dir="ltr">Greenwald trots out other things Snowden has written and said that are critical of Russia. The argument goes on in the Twittersphere where, I admit, I do not venture.</p><p>So, to loop back, Greenwald trashes Boot pretty effectively. The stuff about Boot himself being a coward because he advocates for war but doesn’t enlist is a bit personal for my taste. And whether you call Boot a liar (which in my book requires knowingly telling a falsehood), you can decide for yourself. But on the main point, according to my lights, Greenwald has demonstrated that Boot’s piece contains a serious, slanderous falsehood. There is also at each stage of this brouhaha (or does one mean contretemps?) factual information coming through that, in all likelihood, couldn’t have come through the filters built into the old journalism of objectivity.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/old-journalism-norms-fade-debate-over-edward-snowden-gets-personal#commentsMediaNationBusinessWorldGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNEdward SnowdenTue, 09 Jun 2015 13:38:38 +0000Eric Black92534 at http://www.minnpost.comLindsey Graham’s plan for Mideast peace: more warhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/lindsey-graham-s-plan-mideast-peace-more-war
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="500" scrolling="no" src="http://player.theplatform.com/p/2E2eJC/nbcNewsOffsite?guid=x_dc_mtp_graham_iraq_150602" width="635"></iframe></p><p dir="ltr">Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has a plan to bring peace to the Mideast. It’s called war. Open-ended, U.S.-led war. To his credit, Graham is willing to level with those among the electorate who might want to know when and how we will ever get out:</p><p dir="ltr">“You don’t get out,” Graham told NBC’s Chuck Todd in an interview taped in a bar and continued in the back of a moving car. “You don’t get out.”</p><p dir="ltr">Graham, like his best friend and ally in the U.S. Senate, John McCain, is a neoconservative dream candidate. His plan is likewise a neocon dream plan that, in my view, is discredited by the U.S. experience in Iraq since 2003. It is a plan that continues to rely on a version of the sale jobs that held that the Americans would be welcomed, greeted with candy and flowers, and accepted as a model for new or reorganized nations that would be born of our renewed intervention.</p><p dir="ltr">But as regular readers of this space know, I’m desperate for straight talk in politics and Graham may be the straightest talker in the nine-going-on-15-or-more Republican presidential field. I give him big points for this, and he answered Todd’s questions forthrightly. But his answers beg some follow-up questions that I hope he will deal with in some forum.</p><p dir="ltr">Here’s my possibly flawed transcription of the key points:</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>Lindsey Graham:</strong> “If I were president the first thing I would announce is that we’re going to arm the Ukrainians so they can fight for their own freedom. I’d leave a residual force behind in Afghanistan. And I would send more troops into Iraq to facilitate their ability to reconstitute their army so they could deny ISIL some safe havens in Iraq.</p><p dir="ltr">“Now Syria’s the hard one. I’d ask Egypt, I’d ask Turkey and the other regional allies that we have to form an army, and we’d be part of that army and we’d go in and take territory back from ISIL. And we’d hold it. And we’d try to get political reconciliation between the Alawites and the rest of the population of Syria.</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>Chuck Todd:</strong> “How do you get out?”</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>Graham:</strong> “You don’t get out. You don’t get out. [Here Todd tries to ask him if he’s prepared to tell America that they will never get their troops out of the Mideast but Graham answers on top of the question with, “We’re still in Japan.”]</p><p dir="ltr">“… I think we have to be involved in the Middle East politically, economically, militarily. If you’re not, you’re making a huge mistake. If we’d have left Germany and Japan after a certain period of time, only God knows what would have happened.</p><p dir="ltr">“Here’s the good news: With a small number of troops, probably less than we have in Korea, you could bring stability back to Iraq. I think you could get together an army to go into Syria…</p><p dir="ltr">“You’re going to have to leave some troops behind. And here is what I’m going to tell America: It’s not the day we leave that matters, it’s what we leave behind. And I don’t see this ending in my lifetime. I don’t’ see us being able to disengage from the Mideast.</p><p dir="ltr">“But I do see this. The military side will go down in time. But building a small schoolhouse in Afghanistan can do more damage to the Taliban than a 500-pound bomb.</p><p dir="ltr">“I’ve got to convince the American people that if you disengage from the region, if you do what we did before 9/11, just let it all go to hell, you’ll pay a price.</p><p dir="ltr">“So I’m trying to be smart. Trust me. I believe economic aid is just as valuable, even more valuable, than hard power. I’m a soft-power guy. But the one thing I can tell people in South Carolina and the country at large is that I don’t see a path forward where we just walk away.”</p><h4 dir="ltr">More questions</h4><p dir="ltr">Now here are a few questions that Sen. Graham should address:</p><p dir="ltr">You propose to put U.S. forces back into Iraq. You do not mention that President Obama was willing to leave a residual force in Iraq if he could negotiate a “status of force agreement” (SOFA) with the Iraqi government, but the Iraqis refused. The Iraqis did this in the face of heavy popular pressure to get the U.S. troops out, and would not agree or even discuss the U.S. demand that U.S. troops be granted immunity from prosecution by local Iraqi authorities (a provision that is standard in U.S. SOFA agreements around the world). How would you, as President Graham, get around this problem? Would you insist on immunity for U.S. troops? Do you have a plan for solving Sunni-Shia hostility within Iraq that has prevented the Shia-led national government from trusting Sunnis with a military role in Anbar Province where Sunnis predominate and where ISIS now occupies much of the province?</p><p dir="ltr">Have Turkey, Egypt or other U.S. allies agreed to provide forces that would fight and die under U.S. leadership in Syria? What happens to your vision if they do not agree?</p><p dir="ltr">The Alawite minority of Syria (an estimated 16 percent of the population) has ruled Syria under the Assad family for decades, brutally and in their own interest. It has alienated, repressed and murdered members of most of the other groups. Please specify your plan to “try to get political reconciliation between the Alawites and the rest of the population of Syria?”</p><p dir="ltr">Is there any way to estimate the cost in U.S. blood and treasure for your vision of indefinite military occupation of various regions of the Mideast?</p><p>Your view seems to rely on the United States being welcome to play a large role in running and managing the Mideast with military power, indefinitely and with license to kill as U.S. presidents may deem necessary. Recent experience since the invasion of Iraq suggests that hatred of the United States is widespread in the region, as is the tendency to see the U.S. role there dominated by interests in oil, U.S. domination and Israel. Do you have some reason to believe that the region wants and would accept U.S. troops in the role you envision?</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/lindsey-graham-s-plan-mideast-peace-more-war#commentsArmed ForcesBarack ObamaNationWorldGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNIraqLindsey GrahamThu, 04 Jun 2015 13:15:21 +0000Eric Black92474 at http://www.minnpost.comJeb Bush 101http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/jeb-bush-101
<p dir="ltr">You may have already figured out (not that it should be any big surprise) that Jeb Bush is not a carbon copy of either his father or his brother. (For starters and superficially: Less preppy than G.H.W; &nbsp;smarter than G.W.) In<a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/jeb-bush-2016-campaign.html"> an excellent overview of the course that might be titled Jeb 101</a>, published in New York magazine, Jennifer Senior (who stipulates that she disagrees with Bush on most policy issues) shows respect for many of Bush's qualities, and ultimately concludes that he is not as lucky in his timing as either previous Bush.</p><p dir="ltr">But, writing with authority based on her coverage of him as governor of Florida, Senior portray him as more conservative than you might think (notwithstanding several areas in which he breaks ranks with the far right, including immigration issues), a very hands-on governor who knew how to pull the levers of power (or does one mean turn the screws), and a complicated, interesting character who has made several major decisions that seem to create distance between himself and the family traditions. After his two terms as governor of a fairly purple state, she writes:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">"The result was one of the most radically conservative state governments of its day. He slashed taxes and the government work force; he tweezed out every stray bit of pork he could find in the state budget, earning himself the nickname 'Veto Corleone,' as he never gets tired of saying. He ended affirmative action; passed the ‘stand your ground’ gun law; and extended the long arms of the state into Terri Schiavo’s hospital room, trying to block her husband’s efforts to remove her from life support. He also enacted massive education reforms, imposing high-stakes testing in Florida’s public schools while creating two different voucher programs."</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">Senior portrays Jeb Bush as forceful, effective and substantive — very much &nbsp;the opposite of the current model of a candidate who goes to face the cameras and recite a few poll-tested words and stick to them. He believes in some things and he argues forcefully for them. Even as he has struggled with some of his early interviews as an (undeclared) presidential candidate, I have noticed this difference in his communication style and appreciate it.</p><p dir="ltr">Senior's piece begins and ends with the flukes of bad luck that have imperiled Jeb's current ambition. The timing is not ideal, but this may be his last shot. The party has changed in ways that may make being the leading choice of establishment Republicans not quite the advantage it used to be. She wraps up her piece thus:</p><blockquote><p>"So here we are, 16 years later still. George W. has poisoned the Bush-family name with a horrific war in Iraq, and the tea party has poisoned the GOP with its assault on rational discourse and nuanced policy. A charismatic bright young thing from the governor’s home state is nipping at his heels [that's a reference to Marco Rubio]. Yet this may be Jeb’s only moment to jump into the fray. As blessed as he is, the ultimate political prize — lucky timing — seems to have eluded him in a way it never did his less talented younger brother, even his father. But what can he do? It is what it is."</p></blockquote>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/06/jeb-bush-101#commentsNationElection 2016GeographyPoliticsHistoryINNJeb BushWed, 03 Jun 2015 13:16:23 +0000Eric Black92462 at http://www.minnpost.comWhy the U.S. usually doesn’t win wars anymorehttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/why-us-usually-doesn-t-win-wars-anymore
<p dir="ltr">The United States generally doesn’t win its wars any more. Sometimes (Vietnam would be a leading case) we lose. Sometimes (Korea in the 1950s) they end in a draw. More often, as in the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, then Iraq, and now the general muddle of endless conflict across much of the Mideast, the wars just drag on.</p><p dir="ltr">So writes <a href="http://aeon.co/magazine/society/can-americans-update-their-ideas-about-war/">Mark Kukis in an essay for aeon.com</a> titled “The Myth of Victory.” I thought it was a brilliant analysis and urge you to read the whole thing.</p><p dir="ltr">The old model of war sort of died with World War II. Countries or empires invaded other countries with big conventional armies, seeking to take them over. Other countries, using conventional military power, often got involved in one side or the other. Pitched battles were fought. Important land or strategic locations were won or lost. The old model wars ended when the loser surrendered to the winner.</p><p dir="ltr">Americans may still be thinking in those terms when they think about war, and getting into wars, and especially the urgency of the United States “winning” when it gets into a war. The new wars are mostly civil wars, in which the United States gets involved on one side but cannot quite get the other side to accept defeat and stop fighting. This seems obvious, in a way, when I write it (and I’m summarizing Kukis throughout), but it strikes me that many of us haven’t shifted our thinking about what “war” is nowadays and the hawks — like John McCain and Lindsey Graham, as two leading examples — who are always advocating for wars, bombing, boots on the ground, etc., don’t seem to get this new model.</p><p dir="ltr">Kukis, by the way, covered the Iraq War for Time magazine and is now lecturing and completing a PhD in history and international relations at Boston University.</p><p dir="ltr">Here are a few excerpts from Kukis’ essay:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“Last year, the US Army General Daniel Bolger published an account of his time as a commander in both Iraq and Afghanistan, titled ‘Why We Lost.’ Bolger, and other observers, explain the loss chiefly as a result of consistently poor strategic choices by senior military and civilian officials. Indeed, US leadership has made many bad decisions in Afghanistan and Iraq — the 2001 failure to capture Bin Laden at Tora Bora, the 2003 decision to disband the Iraqi national army, and the willful blindness to the rise of the Iraqi insurgency early in the occupation stand out as particularly consequential. The biggest mistake, however, might have been the presumption, widely shared among US political and military leaders, that military victory was ever possible.”</p></blockquote><h4 dir="ltr">Afghanistan and Iraq</h4><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“The Pentagon had never seriously contemplated fighting a war in Afghanistan until 9/11 and yet, within weeks, US forces and their Afghan allies were overrunning the country. In 2003, Iraqi forces began crumbling within days of the onset of shock and awe, and Iraqi defence against the subsequent US ground invasion amounted to little more than a tactical retreat. But these momentary triumphs masked a deeper reality about modern conflict that troubled US pursuits from the beginning. Military victory in Iraq or Afghanistan was never, in fact, a real possibility. The very nature of war has changed so much in recent decades that military victory as we tend to imagine it, with winners and losers emerging after a fight with an unambiguous end, is utterly obsolete.”</p></blockquote><h4 dir="ltr">Modern war</h4><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“When the US goes to war today, it typically becomes a party to internal conflict instead of a combatant against another country… From 1990 to 2005, there were 147 internal conflicts. Of those, only 20 ended with one faction legitimately claiming victory. Put another way, since 1990, less than 14&nbsp;per cent of internal conflicts produced a clear winner. About 20&nbsp;per cent produced a ceasefire. And about 50&nbsp;per cent simply persisted. Statistically, the odds of the US coming up a winner in a modern war are perhaps as low as one in seven.”</p></blockquote><h4 dir="ltr">Superpowers</h4><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“Superpowers and hegemons are also winning less frequently these days than they once did. From 1900 to 1949, strong militaries fighting conventionally weaker forces won victories about 65&nbsp;per cent of the time. From 1950 to 1998, advantaged military powers claimed war victories only 45&nbsp;per cent of the time. In the first part of the 19th century, superior powers won wars almost 90&nbsp;per cent of the time. For hundreds of years, nations with the will and the means to raise strong militaries have wagered that the extraordinary investment of time, treasure and lives would yield rewards in war when the moment came. For hundreds of years, that was a safe bet – but not any more. For 21st-century superpowers, war is no longer likely to be a winning endeavour.”</p></blockquote><h4 dir="ltr">Military spending</h4><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“In 2015, the US will spend more on its military than China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, the United Kingdom, India, and Germany combined.”</p></blockquote>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/why-us-usually-doesn-t-win-wars-anymore#commentsArmed ForcesNationWorldGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNAfghanistanIraqJohn McCainKorean WarLindsey GrahamVietnam WarFri, 29 May 2015 18:37:17 +0000Eric Black92423 at http://www.minnpost.comObama’s interview with The Atlantic: a miracle of probative questions and thoughtful answershttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/obama-s-interview-atlantic-miracle-probative-questions-and-thoughtful-answers
<p dir="ltr">President Obama sat down on Tuesday for a long interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic.</p><p dir="ltr">In the context of today’s world of infotainment and political splatball and especially the epidemic of virulent Obama Derangement Syndrome in some quarters of our political spectrum, the exchange is a miracle of good probative questions and thoughtful answers.</p><p dir="ltr">I urge you to <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/05/obama-interview-iran-isis-israel/393782/?utm_source=Sailthru&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=*Mideast%20Brief&amp;utm_campaign=New%20Campaign">read the whole thing</a>, which includes not only Goldberg’s summary at the top but a full transcript below.</p><p dir="ltr">Here are a few highlights:</p><p dir="ltr">On the effort to negotiate a deal that will prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Goldberg asked Obama about the criticism that Iran will cheat and acquire the weapons anyway and the suspicion that perhaps the deal Obama wants to sign is designed mostly to tamp down the crisis long enough for Obama to get out of office:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">Obama: “Look, 20 years from now, I’m still going to be around, God willing. If Iran has a nuclear weapon, it’s my name on this. I think it’s fair to say that in addition to our profound national-security interests, I have a personal interest in locking this down.”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">On the criticism that Obama’s unwillingness to get more militarily involved in the Mideast is making the situation worse Iraq:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“I know that there are some in Republican quarters who have suggested that I’ve overlearned the mistake of Iraq, and that, in fact, just because the 2003 invasion did not go well doesn’t argue that we shouldn’t go back in,” he said. “And one lesson that I think is important to draw from what happened is that if the Iraqis themselves are not willing or capable to arrive at the political accommodations necessary to govern, if they are not willing to fight for the security of their country, we cannot do that for them.</p><p dir="ltr">“We can be effective allies. I think Prime Minister Abadi is sincere and committed to an inclusive Iraqi state, and I will continue to order our military to provide the Iraqi security forces all assistance that they need in order to secure their country, and I’ll provide diplomatic and economic assistance that’s necessary for them to stabilize.</p><p dir="ltr">“But we can’t do it for them, and one of the central flaws I think of the decision back in 2003 was the sense that if we simply went in and deposed a dictator, or simply went in and cleared out the bad guys, that somehow peace and prosperity would automatically emerge, and that lesson we should have learned a long time ago. And so the really important question moving forward is: How do we find effective partners — not just in Iraq, but in Syria, and in Yemen, and in Libya — that we can work with, and how do we create the international coalition and atmosphere in which people across sectarian lines are willing to compromise and are willing to work together in order to provide the next generation a fighting chance for a better future?”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">On the question of whether the Iranians (and some others) are so deranged by anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism that that they cannot be expected to behave rationally on matters involving Israel:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">Obama: &nbsp;“Well the fact that you are anti-Semitic, or racist, doesn’t preclude you from being interested in survival. It doesn’t preclude you from being rational about the need to keep your economy afloat; it doesn’t preclude you from making strategic decisions about how you stay in power; and so the fact that the supreme leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] is anti-Semitic doesn’t mean that this overrides all of his other considerations. You know, if you look at the history of anti-Semitism, Jeff, there were a whole lot of European leaders — and there were deep strains of anti-Semitism in this country—”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">Here Goldberg interjected by suggesting that anti-Semitic European leaders have indeed made irrational decisions, to which Obama responded:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“They may make irrational decisions with respect to discrimination, with respect to trying to use anti-Semitic rhetoric as an organizing tool. At the margins, where the costs are low, they may pursue policies based on hatred as opposed to self-interest. But the costs here are not low, and what we’ve been very clear [about] to the Iranian regime over the past six years is that we will continue to ratchet up the costs, not simply for their anti-Semitism, but also for whatever expansionist ambitions they may have. That’s what the sanctions represent. That’s what the military option I’ve made clear I preserve represents. And so I think it is not at all contradictory to say that there are deep strains of anti-Semitism in the core regime, but that they also are interested in maintaining power, having some semblance of legitimacy inside their own country, which requires that they get themselves out of what is a deep economic rut that we’ve put them in, and on that basis they are then willing and prepared potentially to strike an agreement on their nuclear program.”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">Goldberg explored the less-than-warm-and-friendly relations between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He wrote that Obama “tried to frame his conflict with Netanyahu in impersonal terms, [but] he made two things clear. One is that he will not stop criticizing Israel when he believes it is not living up to its own founding values. And two — and this is my interpretation of his worldview [Goldberg noted] — he holds Israel to a higher standard than he does other countries because of the respect he has for Jewish values and Jewish teachings, and for the role Jewish mentors and teachers have played in his life.” After equating the creation of Israel with the American civil-rights movement, he went on to say this:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">[Quoting Obama now] &nbsp;“What is also true, by extension, is that I have to show that same kind of regard to other peoples. And I think it is true to Israel’s traditions and its values — its founding principles — that it has to care about … Palestinian kids. And when I was in Jerusalem and I spoke, the biggest applause that I got was when I spoke about those kids I had visited in Ramallah, and I said to an Israeli audience that it is profoundly Jewish, it is profoundly consistent with Israel’s traditions to care about them. And they agreed. So if that’s not translated into policy — if we’re not willing to take risks on behalf of those values — then those principles become empty words, and in fact, in my mind, it makes it more difficult for us to continue to promote those values when it comes to protecting Israel internationally.”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">Elsewhere in the exchange, Obama made clear his continuing support for a two-state solution:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“The most important thing, I think, that we can do right now in strengthening Israel’s position is to describe very clearly why I have believed that a two-state solution is the best security plan for Israel over the long term; for me to take very seriously Israel’s security concerns about what a two-state solution might look like; to try to work through systematically those issues; but also, at the end of the day, to say to any Israeli prime minister that it will require some risks in order to achieve peace. And the question you have to ask yourself then is: How do you weigh those risks against the risks of doing nothing and just perpetuating the status quo?</p><p dir="ltr">My argument is that the risks of doing nothing are far greater, and I ultimately — it is important for the Israeli people and the Israeli government to make its own decisions about what it needs to secure the people of that nation.</p><p>But my hope is that over time that debate gets back on a path where there’s some semblance of hope and not simply fear, because it feels to me as if ... all we are talking about is based from fear. Over the short term that may seem wise—cynicism always seems a little wise—but it may lead Israel down a path in which it’s very hard to protect itself.”</p></blockquote>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/obama-s-interview-atlantic-miracle-probative-questions-and-thoughtful-answers#commentsArmed ForcesBarack ObamaNationWorldGeographyPoliticsINNIsrealFri, 22 May 2015 19:22:15 +0000Eric Black92337 at http://www.minnpost.comHillary Clinton needs to explain how she got the Iraq War vote wronghttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/hillary-clinton-needs-explain-how-she-got-iraq-war-vote-wrong
<p dir="ltr">I know there is plenty of time for Hillary Clinton to take a position on everything for which a presidential candidate should have a position. But she continues to play a waiting game that is off-putting or worse.</p><p dir="ltr">It’s more than a month since April 13 when she “<a href="http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/hillary-clinton-s-announcement-video-and-why-i-hated-it">announced” her candidacy via an online video</a> in which she barely appeared and in which she said nothing of substance other than that she was running.</p><p dir="ltr">Seven weeks later, there is still no link to an “issues” section on her campaign website, although there are links you can follow to donate or to volunteer.</p><p dir="ltr">The campaign press corps has been publishing a running score of how many questions she has answered from the media. A week ago, the number stood at 13 —<a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/05/13/406250488/the-13-questions-hillary-clinton-has-answered-from-the-press"> most of which were barely substantive, </a>one of which was “how are you liking Iowa?” — but that was getting embarrassing, so she took six more. And, in some cases, her answers are non-committal fluff.</p><p dir="ltr">Scott Galindez of Reader Supported News <a href="http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/30275-focus-scott-galindez-secretary-clinton-i-have-some-questions-for-you">gave her a hard time about it this week, </a>and published a few reasonable questions that he would like to ask her. Basic, obvious, what’s-your-position-on-issues-in-the-news questions, including at least one that she supposedly already answered but didn’t really.</p><p dir="ltr">According to Galindez, the campaign’s excuse for all this mystery is that Clinton is more focused on hearing from “ordinary Americans.” He sassed back: “What that argument fails to say is that there weren’t many more than 20 everyday Americans at any of her Iowa events, and they were handpicked by the campaign. So they were everyday Clinton supporters.”</p><p dir="ltr">It’s willfully naïve of me to think that Clinton, or any candidate, would run the grave risk of taking positions on issues when she doesn’t really have to. But I’m clinging to some out-of-fashion notions about what politics and campaigns and elections are supposed to be about, which includes offering and debating the merits of concrete policies — in part so that one can claim a mandate for particular actions if one is elected.</p><h4 dir="ltr">‘I got it wrong’</h4><p dir="ltr">I have a question I’d like her to address, and it’s the follow-up to several matters on which <a href="http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/jeb-bush-says-he-would-have-authorized-iraq-invasion-he-s-still-got-some-expl">I’ve recently obsessed</a> in regards to the “mistakes were made” decision to bomb and then invade Iraq, a decision that even Jeb Bush is no longer defending.</p><p dir="ltr">Bush mentioned during Round One of his recent torment that Clinton, then a senator, had voted to authorize the war. In one of my <a href="http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/jeb-bush-says-he-misheard-iraq-war-question">follow-ups to that post</a>, I said that Clinton in her most recent book wrote that in voting to authorize the war: “I got it wrong. Plain and Simple.”</p><p dir="ltr">But since wrongly endorsing a war, especially one that has turned out so badly, is a fairly big lapse of judgment, I believe Clinton owes us more explanation of how she came to get it wrong. (In her Senate floor statement at the time, she endorsed pretty much all the main aspects of the Bush administration’s justification for the war.)</p><p dir="ltr">When she first ran for president in 2008, long after so many of those justification had proven wrong, she had not yet figured out how to say that she “got it wrong.”</p><p dir="ltr">It is true — and likely something that she will emphasize if she has to explain her “aye” on the 2002 Senate resolution authorizing the use of military force — that even at the time she said she did not consider it a vote for a pre-emptive strike, but rather a vote to force Saddam Hussein to allow weapons inspectors back into Iraq to find out whether or not Saddam was amassing chemical, biological or nuclear capabilities. Here’s an excerpt from her Senate floor statement to that effect:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">"A vote for it is not a vote to rush to war; it is a vote that puts awesome responsibility in the hands of our president and we say to him — use these powers wisely and as a last resort… And it is a vote that says clearly to Saddam Hussein — this is your last chance — disarm or be disarmed.”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">But that very point brings me to the question I would most like to have her address in explaining her vote and her position in 2002-03.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Levin amendment</h4><p dir="ltr">At the time of the vote to authorize U.S. military force against Iraq, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/01/opinion/01chafee.html">Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) offered an amendment. </a>It would have asked for United Nations authorization on the use of force and would have called on Saddam to allow U.N. inspectors back in to see what he was hiding.</p><p dir="ltr">The understanding at the time was that if Saddam had refused to allow inspections, the U.N. would have authorized force. It even included a provision allowing the president to use force without U.N. authority if he decided that the U.N. was delaying action in a way that threatened the United States.</p><p dir="ltr">But then-Sen. Clinton voted “no” on the Levin amendment, and the amendment failed (by a wide margin). That left the matter entirely at President George W. Bush’s discretion.</p><p dir="ltr">But Saddam — presumably knowing that he had no weapons and that he was about to get bombed — nonetheless agreed to allow U.N. inspectors back in. The U.N. inspectors did go back to Iraq and were allowed to look everywhere they wanted without delay. They found no WMD.</p><p dir="ltr">But Bush decided to unleash the dogs of war anyway.</p><p dir="ltr">During those last days, should not Sen. Clinton have been arguing publicly and privately against unleashing those dogs, saying that the results of those inspections indicated war was unnecessary? Or, if the weapons were hidden, arguing to leave the inspectors in Iraq indefinitely to keep looking?</p><p dir="ltr">Why did Clinton vote no on the Levin amendment and why, after the U.N. inspectors were given access to every corner of Iraq and could find no WMD, &nbsp;did she not argue to postpone the attack and let them finish their work?</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/hillary-clinton-needs-explain-how-she-got-iraq-war-vote-wrong#commentsArmed ForcesCongressNationElection 2016WorldGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNGeorge W. BushHillary ClintonIraqJeb BushSaddam HusseinFri, 22 May 2015 13:21:42 +0000Eric Black92326 at http://www.minnpost.comNewt Gingrich ‘compliments’ President Obamahttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/newt-gingrich-compliments-president-obama
<p dir="ltr">I'm not sure what the record is for the most backhanded compliment of all time, but a nominee for recent winner in that category might be this one, from Newt Gingrich, in which he "compliments" President Obama by comparing him to Hillary Clinton.</p><p dir="ltr">Here's the quote, reported by Alan Rappeport of &nbsp;the New York Times' tipsheet First Draft:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">Republicans rarely have nice things to say about Mr. Obama, especially those who once wanted to take his job. But Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker who sought the White House in 2012, gave Mr. Obama a backhanded compliment on Tuesday. He said Mrs. Clinton would be a downgrade if she replaced him.</p><p dir="ltr">“I think in the end, while Obama is a radical, and I obviously think he is very dangerous on foreign policy because he is so incompetent, he is not venal and he doesn’t corrupt the entire system,” Mr. Gingrich said in an interview with First Draft. “Having the Clintons back in the White House would be like having a very bad mayor running a very corrupt city.”</p></blockquote>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/newt-gingrich-compliments-president-obama#commentsBarack ObamaNationElection 2016GeographyPoliticsINNHillary ClintonNewt GingrichThu, 21 May 2015 13:08:51 +0000Eric Black92303 at http://www.minnpost.comWhat Republicans learned from the Iraq War mistakehttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/what-republicans-learned-iraq-war-mistake
<p>Soon I'll try to stop obsessing on the lessons of the Iraq War. Jeb Bush's unfortunate brain freeze during the Fox News interview when he said that he absolutely would have authorized the war might have given us a chance to think about the deeper lessons, but, I fear, it did not.</p><p>Bush couldn't quite wriggle off the hook by saying that he had misinterpreted the question, nor by saying he wouldn't speculate on hypotheticals, and eventually conceded that the war had been a mistake.</p><p>By the time he did that, most of the 92 other candidates for the Republican nomination had stepped forward to say that "knowing what we know now" the war had obviously turned out to be a mistake. David Brooks noted that — more interesting and newsworthy to him than Jeb's gyrations — was the new Republican consensus that the war had been a mistake.</p><p>Brooks seems to be trying hard to rein in the cynicism that afflicts much of the punditocracy, so he didn't take the next step and point out that the occasion for this new Republican Iraq-War-was-a-mistake consensus was fairly obviously not a new wisdom about the folly of war but a cynical desire to extend Jeb's bad week.</p><p dir="ltr">But the real problem with this new "wisdom" was nailed to the wall by<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/05/13/the-real-story-behind-jebs-iraq-follies-the-bush-doctrine-lives-on-in-gop/"> a column a week ago</a> (which I unfortunately found only this morning) by Paul Waldman, who writes for the Washington Post's "Plum Line" blog. The realization that the Iraq War (the war that going to be a cakewalk and was going to unleash a democratic spring across the Mideast) turned out to be a disaster does not seem to have led the presidential aspirants (other than Rand Paul) to consider the possibility that any future war might likewise turn out to have what we euphemistically call "unintended consequences." Here's the key passage from Waldman:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">It’s encouraging to see an acknowledgement that the Iraq War was a mistake finally become majority opinion in the GOP, given that it was probably the greatest foreign policy catastrophe in American history.</p><p dir="ltr">But before we make too much of that shift, we need to be clear that the actual substantive disagreements between the candidates are much smaller than it would appear if you were just tuning in now. Republicans may be criticizing Jeb Bush, but they aren’t coming at him from the left, and they aren’t actually turning their backs on most of what his brother represented.</p><p dir="ltr">That isn’t to say there’s no difference of opinion within the party on Iraq. Most former Bush administration officials will defend the invasion to their dying day and insist that it was a grand idea, whether there were any weapons of mass destruction or not. Those who have less of a personal stake in the war vary more in their opinions (of all the actual and potential Republican candidates, only Lindsey Graham and Rick Santorum were in the Senate in 2003 and voted for the resolution approving the war).</p><p dir="ltr">It’s encouraging to see an acknowledgement that the Iraq War was a mistake finally become majority opinion in the GOP, given that it was probably the greatest foreign policy catastrophe in American history.</p><p dir="ltr">But opinions don’t actually vary all that much. All the candidates agree that we should increase military spending. With the exception of Rand Paul, all express an unrestrained enthusiasm for military adventurism. That’s one thing Iraq hasn’t changed: Republicans still believe that the application of military force is a great way to solve problems around the world.</p><p dir="ltr">The only difference of opinion comes after the first wave of bombing. Ted Cruz<a href="http://dailycaller.com/2015/04/28/the-cruz-doctrine-ted-cruz-opens-up-about-his-foreign-policy-worldview/"> explicitly warns</a> against nation-building, but he doesn’t express any reservations about the use of military force. Later today, Marco Rubio will give a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations about his foreign policy views, and they sound an awful lot like George W. Bush’s: increase military spending and spread American values with "moral clarity."</p><p dir="ltr">Scott Walker<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/04/02/scott-walker-ill-blow-up-any-iran-deal-no-matter-what-our-european-allies-think/"> wants to dump any deal on Iran’s nuclear program the moment he takes office</a>, making military action there far more likely.<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/04/14/morning-plum-marco-rubio-pledges-to-scrap-iran-deal-regardless-of-what-our-euro-allies-think/"> So does Marco Rubio</a>. None of the GOP candidates will say he wants to occupy Iran. But military action against the country’s nuclear facilities ought to be, as any of them will tell you, "on the table."</p><p dir="ltr">Again with the exception of Paul, none of the candidates seems willing to grapple with the possibility that there are unintended consequences to military action that we need to be wary of. At most, they think the problems come only when you stick around too long after reducing a nation to rubble. And when you listen to them talk about Barack Obama’s foreign policy record, the word they use over and over again is "weak." The problem is never that some situations we confront offer no good options, or that our decisions can backfire, or that there are places where America may not be able to set things right to the benefit of all. The problem is always weakness, and strength is always the solution.</p><p dir="ltr">Everyone understands why Jeb Bush is floundering around trying to answer the question of whether the Iraq War was a mistake from the beginning: It was his brother’s war. But neither he nor his opponents seem to have learned much from the experience, whether we’re asking about<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/election/2015/05/11/3657206/big-lie-jeb-bush-tells-justify-brothers-war-iraq/"> concocting phony intelligence</a> to sell a war you’ve already decided you want, believing that all the "bad guys" in the world must be in cahoots, seeing every foreign policy question in black and white, or putting blind faith in the idea that "strength" is all you need to succeed.</p></blockquote>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/what-republicans-learned-iraq-war-mistake#commentsArmed ForcesNationElection 2016GeographyPoliticsHistoryINNJeb BushWed, 20 May 2015 16:43:19 +0000Eric Black92292 at http://www.minnpost.comFeingold to seek his old Senate seat in what could be a marquee matchup in '16http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/feingold-seek-his-old-senate-seat-what-could-be-marquee-matchup-16
<p>Former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, a liberal Democrat and a leading crusader for reform of the money-in-politics mess<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/apnewsbreak-wisconsins-feingold-run-us-senate-31039529">, has confirmed that he will seek his old Senate seat</a> next year in a rematch with first-term Republican incumbent Ron Johnson.</p><p>Feingold, who won four Senate terms starting in 1992, was defeated in 2010, 52-47 percent, by political newcomer Johnson, an Oshkosh businessman and multimillionaire, and, as things stand now, Feingold will likely be running against Johnson next year. Feingold will be 63. Johnson will be 61.</p><p>You might think Wisconsin is trending strongly Republican because of all the attention Gov. Scott Walker has received for his election and re-election, his successful defeat of the effort to recall him, and his current high standing in polls for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. But don’t overlook the last Senate election in which Democrat Tammy Baldwin defeated long-time Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson by a solid 51-46 percent margin.</p><p>Minnesota won’t have a U.S. Senate race next year, but we will have front-row seats for the Feingold-Johnson contest, a race that could be one of the marquee matchups of 2016. In 2016, Democrats need a net gain of either four or five seats (depending on which party controls the vice-presidency) to take control from the Republicans, who gained control in 2014 with a huge nine-seat gain.</p><p>But, <a href="http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/republicans-face-serious-barriers-holding-us-senate-majority-2016">as I wrote last year right after the big Repub gains</a>, pretty much all of the factors that led to those gains will favor a big Dem pickup in 2016. Charlie Cook, relying on the same set of factors, <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/off-to-the-races/handicapping-a-democratic-takeover-20150511">wrote on Monday</a> that the 2016 map heavily favors the Dems.</p><h4>Next round favors Democrats</h4><p>As you know, the staggered nature of Senate elections puts a different third of the states into play every cycle. The last map heavily favored the Repubs because it featured more seats (by 21-14) held by Democrats than Republicans, which means more pickup opportunities for Republicans. The next cycle (barring any deaths or resignations that add to the list) is tilted the other way, only more so, with 24 seats (including Ron Johnson’s) on the ballot, compared to just 10 seats currently held by Democrats.</p><p>In addition, the location of the seats helps the Dems even more. In search for seats that are likely to flip from one party to the other, the pundits generally start with the list of seats in which the incumbent senator is from Party A, but the state gave its electoral votes to Party B in the last presidential election. In 2014, seven seats, held by the Dems, were on the ballot in states that Mitt Romney had carried in 2012, and most them were in states that Romney carried by double-digit margins. In fact, the Repubs picked up all seven of those seats, which constituted the majority of the overall nine-seat gain that enabled them take over majority status.</p><p>Of the 24 currently-Repub-held-seats that will be on the ballot in 2016, seven of them (including Wisconsin) are states that went blue for Obama in both 2008 and 2012.</p><p>Of the 10 states that have races in 2016 for Senate seats that are currently held by Democrats, <i>not a single one was carried by the Republican presidential nominee in either of the last two elections</i>.</p><p>In short, if every state that went blue in the last two presidential elections were to elect a Democrat to the Senate in 2016, and every state that went red in the presidential elections were to elect a Republican Senate candidate, the Dems would have a net pickup of seven seats and would take control.</p><h4>Higher turnout</h4><p>And there’s one more factor that, like all of those above, has nothing to do with the actual identities of the candidates. 2016 will be a presidential election year. Turnout in presidential election years is reliably about 20 percentage points higher than in midterm elections. Democrats generally get more benefit from high turnout than do Republicans (and vice versa).</p><p>I wouldn’t bet the farm on Feingold defeating Johnson. The track record of defeated former senators coming back for a rematch against the person who ousted them is not that great. But it will be big surprise if Democrats don’t make substantial gains in the Senate races of 2016.</p><p>I headlined my December 2014 piece “Republicans face serious barriers to holding U.S. Senate majority in 2016.” I’ll stand by that. Cook’s piece of earlier this week was headlined: “Handicapping a Democratic Takeover; The 2016 Senate cycle is shaping up to be the opposite of 2014, with the map heavily stacked against the GOP.”</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/feingold-seek-his-old-senate-seat-what-could-be-marquee-matchup-16#commentsMidwest RegionCongressNationElection 2016WisconsinThu, 14 May 2015 16:25:58 +0000Eric Black92215 at http://www.minnpost.comJeb Bush says he misheard the Iraq war questionhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/jeb-bush-says-he-misheard-iraq-war-question
<p>A couple of brief follow-ups to Tuesday's<a href="http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/jeb-bush-says-he-would-have-authorized-iraq-invasion-he-s-still-got-some-expl"> post about Jeb Bush's statements,</a> in a Fox News interview, regarding the Iraq war.</p><p>Bush was asked: “Knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion?”</p><p>He said yes, and noted that Hillary Clinton (who voted in the U.S. Senate in 2002 to authorize the use of force against Iraq) agreed with him.</p><p>I noted that Bush appeared not to have answered the question he was asked ("knowing what we know now") but had answered a different question, that wasn't asked ("knowing what was known in 2002, when the Senate voted, would you have voted to authorize...).</p><p>Speaking after the Fox interview on the Sean Hannity radio program, Bush acknowledged that he misinterpreted the question. In that round, he said: "I interpreted the question wrong, I guess. I was talking about, given what people knew then.”</p><p>"Interpreted" is not the word he means here. The question ("knowing what we know now") cannot be "interpreted" to mean "knowing what was known then." But let's assume Bush is trying to say that he misheard the question.</p><p>Hannity then asked Bush to answer the correct question: Knowing everything we know now, was the Iraq war a mistake? He didn't give a clear answer. "That's a hypothetical... Mistakes were made, as they always are in life."</p><p>Bush has identified some key mistakes: relying on intelligence about weapons of mass destruction that turned out to be "faulty"; not providing enough security in the aftermath of the invasion, which caused many Iraqis to turn against the American occupation; and, in common with many neoconservatives, he has faulted President Obama for not leaving more troops in Iraq longer, after the "surge" had begun to stabilize the situation.</p><p>I would actually like to give Bush credit for continuing to address this. When I watched the full interview that he gave to Megyn Kelly on Fox I was impressed that he is trying to be candid and thoughtful, at least compared to the incredibly low standards of candor and thoughtfulness practiced by most candidates.</p><p>But whatever brownie points he may get for that effort, he still owes us a clear answer. Learning the right lessons from the invasion of Iraq is a key point for the next president, and Jeb Bush's bottom-line assessment is at this point a complete muddle.</p><h4><strong>The muddle summarized</strong></h4><p>If we put together all of his recent comments, correct for the "misinterpretation" of the Kelly question, and try to make sense of his overall case, it seems to come out to something roughly close to this:</p><p>The premise on which the war was justified (that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction) was wrong. But despite the faulty premise, the war might have turned out to be a good thing, if not for the mistakes that were made, as they are always made in life.</p><p>In my post Tuesday, I also said that Hillary Clinton — who did, as Bush mentioned — vote to authorize the war, needs to explain her vote and what she learned from it. Since then, I discovered that Clinton has said quite a bit about that vote. <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/may/12/jeb-bush-hillary-clinton-and-authorizing-war-iraq/">(Politifact has an excellent collection of her statements here.</a>)</p><p dir="ltr">To summarize, she has said that if she knew then what she knows now, she would not have voted to authorize. She has declined to use the word "mistake" to characterize the vote, but she did say in her most recent book, "Hard Choices," that she "got it wrong." Here's that quote in a little bit of context:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">"I thought I had acted in good faith and made the best decision I could with the information I had. And I wasn’t alone in getting it wrong. But I still got it wrong. Plain and simple."</p></blockquote>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/jeb-bush-says-he-misheard-iraq-war-question#commentsArmed ForcesBarack ObamaNationElection 2016WorldGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNHillary ClintonJeb BushSaddam HusseinSean HannityWed, 13 May 2015 17:36:28 +0000Eric Black92195 at http://www.minnpost.comJeb Bush says he would have authorized Iraq invasion, but he’s still got some explaining to dohttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/jeb-bush-says-he-would-have-authorized-iraq-invasion-he-s-still-got-some-expl
<p dir="ltr">If he had been president in 2003, Jeb Bush, like his brother, would have authorized the U.S. invasion of Iraq.</p><p dir="ltr">In an interview with Megyn Kelly that will air on Fox News Monday evening, she asks Bush whether he would have authorized the bombing that his brother's administration called "Shock and Awe" and the subsequent invasion and occupation that was dubbed "Operation Iraqi Freedom."</p><p dir="ltr">Here's<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/05/10/exclusive-jeb-bush-says-hillary-clinton-would-have-backed-iraq-invasion/"> the exchange, which Fox has released in advance</a> of the full interview:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;" dir="ltr"><strong>Megyn Kelly:</strong> “Knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion?”</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;" dir="ltr"><strong>Jeb Bush:</strong> “I would’ve. And so would’ve Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody. And so would’ve everybody that was confronted with the intelligence that we got.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;" dir="ltr">“In retrospect, the intelligence that we saw -- that the world saw -- was faulty. And in retrospect, once we invaded and took out Saddam Hussein, we didn’t focus on security first. And the Iraqis, in this incredibly insecure environment, turned on the U.S. military because there was no security for themselves and their families.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;" dir="ltr">“And by the way, guess who thinks that those mistakes took place as well. George W. Bush. So — newsflash for the world if they’re trying to find places where there’s a big space between me and my brother, this might not be one of those.”</p><p dir="ltr">I would assume that a lot of thought has gone into how Jeb Bush will answer this as he heads toward the official announcement of his candidacy. As his latest crack at squaring this particular circle, it's — well, it's only his latest crack.<a href="http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/02/revisionist-history-jeb-bush-mistakes-iraq"> He said pretty much the same thing in February.</a> His answer to Fox, as his previous speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, leaves behind several questions that both Jeb and his brother should someday answer.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Intelligence question</h4><p dir="ltr">The intelligence was "faulty." Who was responsible for the intelligence? The Bush administration, and not the senators who relied on the intelligence when they voted to authorize the war. Why was it wrong? There are certainly many, many critics of the run-up to the war who believe that the intelligence was heavily influenced — "cooked," some say — by the desire of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to justify the war. Will candidate Jeb Bush be exploring the famous flaws in the evidence and how they came about?</p><p dir="ltr">Also, I don't know how carefully Megyn Kelly prepared her questions, but Bush actually ignored her question. She asked him "knowing what we know now" whether he would have authorizing the war. We know now that the intelligence was "faulty." Saying yes to that makes little sense, if you would have been starting a war that you know was based on faulty intelligence. He also "knows now" that the post-war restoration of order was botched. He is either engaging in magical thinking or he was prepared for a different question ("based on what was known at the time, would you have authorized the war") and decided to answer the one he preferred rather than the one he was asked.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Clinton question</h4><p dir="ltr">Hillary Clinton and "everybody" who saw the faulty intelligence would have authorized the war. On Hillary Clinton this is true. She needs to explain her vote to authorize the war and explain how she would avoid making such mistakes again in the future.</p><p dir="ltr">But "everybody" did not vote to authorize the war.</p><p dir="ltr">Twenty three senators (21 Democrats, one Republican and one independent) voted no. Both of Minnesota's senators, Paul Wellstone and Mark Dayton, voted no. Barack Obama, who was then running for the Senate, spoke against the resolution. Bernie Sanders, who was then in the House, voted no, as did three Minnesota members of the House (Betty McCollum, Martin Sabo and Jim Oberstar) and 128 other House members.</p><p dir="ltr">When I look at the list of Democrats who voted for the resolution, every one of them who subsequently ran for president voted "aye." They are: Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Joe Lieberman and Chris Dodd. I've always thought there was something sadly telling about this fact, that those with presidential ambitions all voted aye.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Blix question</h4><p dir="ltr">Hans Blix. Hans Blix. Hans Blix. Forgive me. This is one of my personal obsessions. I've written about it before and I will probably write about it again. The evidence that Saddam was hiding weapons of mass destruction was deeply flawed. But the best evidence that he probably was hiding something was that Saddam had kicked out the international inspectors who were supposed to verify that he wasn't hiding anything. And he wouldn't let them back in.</p><p dir="ltr">Then he did. After the Senate had already voted and the war was imminent, Saddam allowed the U.N. inspection team back in and gave them complete freedom to look anywhere. (Bear in mind, Secretary of State Colin Powell had told the UNited Nations that the U.S. intelligence agencies not only knew what weapons Saddam was hiding but where he was hiding them.) Hans Blix of Sweden, head of the U.N. inspections team, went back in and was getting excellent cooperation from the Iraqis. He found no WMD. He asked for a little while longer to finish the work and verify that the WMD that had existed early had all been destroyed. But no, Blix and his inspectors had to be evacuated so they would not be killed by U.S. bombs.</p><p dir="ltr">This was months after Congress had voted to authorize the use of force and those senators who voted aye, including Sen. Clinton, did not have the benefit of Blix's findings before they voted. It's not clear from Jeb Bush's exchange with Kelly whether her question — knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion — refers to what we knew before or after the U.N. inspectors had been allowed back in and had found no WMD.</p><p dir="ltr">The decision to ignore Blix — in fact to evacuate Blix and start the bombing — was George W. Bush's. If Jeb Bush is saying that he would've authorized the invasion on that basis, it is different than the authorization the Senate had adopted.</p><p dir="ltr">I suspect he will not do this. Somehow or other, those who retrospectively want to justify the decision to bomb and invade and overthrow Saddam seem to get away with ignoring the Blix team's findings. But if he wants to be honest and clear, Jeb Bush (and everyone else who still defend the decision to unleash the dogs of war) should clarify whether his answer includes the fact that when his brother made the final big decision to unleash the dogs of war, unbiased international inspectors had found that Saddam had, in fact, no WMD.</p><p dir="ltr">I haven't seen the full Kelly interview, so perhaps she asked about Blix. But I'd be surprised. Can we really learn the right lessons of the Iraq War if we keep ignoring this?</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/jeb-bush-says-he-would-have-authorized-iraq-invasion-he-s-still-got-some-expl#commentsArmed ForcesBarack ObamaMediaCongressNationBusinessWorldGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNColin PowellGeorge W. BushHillary ClintonIraqJeb BushSaddam HusseinMon, 11 May 2015 20:21:46 +0000Eric Black92157 at http://www.minnpost.comDisturbing data: The rich and powerful get their policies adopted, even if opposed by most votershttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/disturbing-data-rich-and-powerful-get-their-policies-adopted-even-if-opposed-
<p dir="ltr">You won’t be shocked to learn that wealthy people get the policies they want from government more often than those of low or moderate means. Nor will you be surprised that organized special interests — the kinds of groups that send lobbyists to Washington to advance pro-business agendas — have an impact. But, at least if you’ve been watching your old Frank Capra movies, you might think these tendencies can be overcome, or at least partially offset, by the power of the people, the ordinary voter, without whose support no one can reach high office in America.</p><p dir="ltr">Even a legislator who sympathizes with or has sold his political soul to the rich and powerful (you might think) has to take into account the policy preferences of the ordinary voter.</p><p dir="ltr">You might think that, but according to research by an eminent political scientist presented at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School, you would be wrong.</p><p dir="ltr">Whether or not a proposed change in government policy is favored by the majority of Americans “matters not a whit” in leading to the adoption of such policy changes, Princeton professor Martin Gilens has concluded. On the other hand, the support of a proposed policy change by wealthy Americans, or by organized lobbies, matters quite a few whits.</p><p dir="ltr">Gilens and co-author Benjamin Page have written a paper detailing these results. You can see the paper <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&amp;aid=9354310">summarized here.</a> You can see the two professors discuss it with Jon Stewart <a href="http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/kj9zai/martin-gilens---benjamin-page">on the “Daily Show” here</a>. You can read Paul Krugman discussing their <a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/21/class-oligarchy-and-the-limits-of-cynicism/?_r=1">findings here.</a> Or you can just allow your humble and obedient and ink-stained wretch to summarize what Gilens told an audience at a Thursday forum of the Humphrey School’s Center for the Study of Politics and Government.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Three decades of survey data</h4><p dir="ltr">Gilens searched three decades worth of survey data (the decades with the 1980s, the 1990s and the 2000-aughts) to identify about 1,800 poll questions that revealed whether a particular policy change before Congress was supported by average Americans, by wealthy Americans and by any organized lobbies. Many of the proposals never became law. But Gilens and Page found that policies supported by economic elites became law between 60 and 70 percent of the time. Policies support by business lobbies also became law 60 to 70 percent of the time. (Often these were the same policies.) But policy changes favored by a majority of all voters were enacted just 30 percent of the time.</p><div class="image float-right"><img class="imagecache-article_detail" src="/sites/default/files/imagecache/article_detail/MartinGilens200.jpg" alt="Princeton professor Martin Gilens" title="Princeton professor Martin Gilens" /><div class="credit">Princeton</div><div class="caption">Princeton professor Martin Gilens</div></div><p dir="ltr">Wait a minute (you may be thinking), 30 percent isn’t nothing; what about that “not a whit” stuff? But here’s the kicker. The policies that became law, that had the support of the majority of Americans, in all cases also had the support of the economic elite or of powerful lobbies or both.</p><p dir="ltr">There were plenty of cases in which policies supported by the wealthy or the big lobbies became law even though they were opposed by the popular majority. (He mentioned a few, including the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Bush tax cuts and the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall law — which was widely blamed for facilitating the economic collapse of 2007-8 — that were adopted even though they were opposed by the majority of Americans.)</p><p dir="ltr">But they found no cases in which a policy with majority support was adopted without additional support by wealthy Americans or organized influence. That’s the key to Gilens’ statement that “only people with money or organized influence matter.”</p><h4 dir="ltr">It takes money to win</h4><p dir="ltr">But how can that be true when no one can get into political office without popular support, usually majority support? You don’t have to be a super-cynic to know where Gilens goes with that question. It takes money to get elected. On average, he said, $1 million to win a seat in the U.S. House, $10 million in the Senate. In the last presidential election, more than $1 billion was spent by or on behalf of each of the major-party presidential campaigns.</p><p dir="ltr">Maybe you’re used to that so it doesn’t surprise you, but how about this one: Wealthy donors, comprising less than .01 percent of the population (that’s not 1 percent — that’s one one-hundredth of 1 percent) accounted for 40 percent of all political contributions in 2012, Gilens said. (All those donors could fit inside Target stadium, he said— but, of course, they may not all be Twins fans.)</p><p dir="ltr">Who gives how much to campaigns has long been an issue, but in the post-Citizens United era, Gilens said, most of the money isn’t even raised and spent by the campaigns. In 2012, more than $1 billion of political spending was done by SuperPACs and other unaccountable groups who don’t even give to campaigns. Of SuperPAC money, he said, 93 percent came from just 3,318 wealthy people. Fifty-nine percent of it came from just 159 people, which he called “a shocking concentration” of political giving that “shows no signs of letting up.”</p><p dir="ltr">“Political and economic power has become concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people,” Gilens said, and if that trend continues “we’ll have a democracy in name only.”</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/disturbing-data-rich-and-powerful-get-their-policies-adopted-even-if-opposed-#commentsMinneapolisCongressNationGeographyPoliticsINNFri, 08 May 2015 13:16:48 +0000Eric Black92126 at http://www.minnpost.comGridlock paralyzes the Federal Election Commissionhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/gridlock-paralyzes-federal-election-commission
<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="115" data-total-count="2635" itemprop="articleBody">It's getting hard to find words to capture how complete is the collapse of the legal structure that was designed to regulate money in politics.</p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="115" data-total-count="2635" itemprop="articleBody">The latest chapter was captured in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/us/politics/fec-cant-curb-2016-election-abuse-commission-chief-says.html?emc=edit_th_20150503&amp;nl=todaysheadlines&amp;nlid=54115655&amp;_r=0">a New York Times story over the weekend </a>about the dysfunction of the Federal Election Commission, the agency created in big bipartisan post-Watergate law to monitor and enforce the various new requirements to limit how much individuals, corporations and labor unions could spend to influence campaigns and force disclosure of who was funding whom and with how much.</p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="115" data-total-count="2635" itemprop="articleBody">By law, the six-member commission was designed to always contain three Republicans and three Democrats. You can easily imagine the laudable purpose of such a rule, but the architects of the law did not foresee the 21st Century collapse of the ability of Democrats and Republicans to work together. Here's an excerpt from the Times story that captures the current state of play:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;" class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="249" data-total-count="538" itemprop="articleBody">“The likelihood of the laws being enforced is slim,” Ann M. Ravel, the [FEC] chairwoman, said in an interview. “I never want to give up, but I’m not under any illusions. People think the F.E.C. is dysfunctional. It’s worse than dysfunctional.”</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;" class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="335" data-total-count="873" itemprop="articleBody">Her unusually frank assessment reflects a worsening stalemate among the agency’s <a title="The commissioners." href="http://www.fec.gov/members/members.shtml">six commissioners</a>. They are perpetually locked in 3-to-3 ties along party lines on key votes because of a fundamental disagreement over the mandate of the commission, which was created 40 years ago in response to the political corruption of Watergate.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;" class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="184" data-total-count="1057" itemprop="articleBody">Some commissioners are barely on speaking terms, cross-aisle negotiations are infrequent, and with no consensus on which rules to enforce, the caseload against violators has plummeted.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;" class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="504" data-total-count="1561" itemprop="articleBody">The F.E.C.’s paralysis comes at a particularly critical time because of the sea change brought about by the Supreme Court’s decision in 2010 in the Citizens United case, which freed corporations and unions to spend unlimited funds in support of political candidates. Billionaire donors and “<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/campaign_finance/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about Super PACs." class="meta-classifier">super PACs</a>” are already gaining an outsize role in the 2016 campaign, and the lines have become increasingly stretched and blurred over what presidential candidates and political groups are allowed to do.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;" class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="115" data-total-count="2635" itemprop="articleBody">“The few rules that are left, people feel free to ignore,” said Ellen L. Weintraub, a Democratic commissioner.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;" class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="272" data-total-count="2907" itemprop="articleBody">Republican members of the commission see no such crisis. They say they are comfortable with how things are working under the structure that gives each party three votes. No action at all, they say, is better than overly aggressive steps that could chill political speech...</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;" class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="272" data-total-count="2907" itemprop="articleBody">“Congress set this place up to gridlock,” Lee E. Goodman, a Republican commissioner, said in an interview. “This agency is functioning as Congress intended. The democracy isn’t collapsing around us.”</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/gridlock-paralyzes-federal-election-commission#commentsMon, 04 May 2015 15:33:39 +0000Eric Black92060 at http://www.minnpost.comLani Guinier says U.S. needs reform and should learn from other democracieshttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/lani-guinier-says-us-needs-reform-and-should-learn-other-democracies
<div class="image float-right"><img class="imagecache-article_detail" src="/sites/default/files/imagecache/article_detail/LaniGuinier225.jpg" alt="Lani Guinier" title="Lani Guinier" /><div class="credit">Harvard</div><div class="caption">Lani Guinier</div></div><p dir="ltr">Lani Guinier, the first black woman to become a tenured professor at Harvard Law School, is perhaps most famous to the general public for a job she didn’t get. In 1993, Bill Clinton nominated her to be assistant attorney general for civil rights, but some of her views became sufficiently controversial to convince Clinton to withdraw the nomination before it came to a vote.</p><p dir="ltr">She has professed (or does one mean professored?) on at Harvard, written several books and continued to opine in the areas of both voting rights and civil rights. On Friday, she was in town to speak at a luncheon of the Minnesota Black Women Lawyers Network. I had a short interview with her and between that conversation and her talk to the MBWLN, Guinier said:</p><h4 dir="ltr">Other countries</h4><p dir="ltr">The U.S. system of democracy needs updating and it could benefit by looking around the world at other democracies that do things differently. The U.S. system is still rooted in the vision of the framers, she said. The framers wanted ordinary voters (at least white, male, adult property-owners) to have some say over their government, but not too much. They employed several elements of indirect democracy, and they still took a fairly elitist view of whom should vote and especially whom should lead the government.</p><p dir="ltr">Constitutional amendments have expanded the franchise on a race, gender and age basis, but the United States still suffers from too little participation and too few choices. What it takes to get registered to vote varies widely around the country and many who would be eligible to vote are not registered. In Canada, she mentioned, when the census takers knock on pretty much every eligible voter’s door, they ask whether the residents are registered. If not, they take care of it right on the spot.</p><div class="float-left"><div class="minnpost-ads-ad minnpost-ads-ad-Middle "><script type="text/javascript">OAS_AD("Middle");</script></div></div><p dir="ltr">In Germany (where, she said, the system was designed with heavy input from the occupying Americans after World War II) a voter can cast two votes at once: one expressing a preference for a particular party and one for a particular candidate to represent their district. Both votes are weighed in assembling the Bundestag, which helps keep Germany from being dominated by just two parties as the U.S. system is.</p><p dir="ltr">Guinier was also critical of the U.S. feature that allows a dominant party to redraw the legislative and congressional district maps periodically, a power that is almost always used in a self-serving way by the party that controls.</p><h4 dir="ltr">New book</h4><p dir="ltr">Most of the above is from our interview. During her luncheon address, she talked about her new book, “The Tyranny of the Meritocracy: Democratizing Higher Education in America.” I can’t say I fully grasped the argument from her remarks. Based on the publisher’s description of the book, Guinier believes that “the merit systems that dictate the admissions practices of [elite colleges and law schools], are functioning to select and privilege elite individuals rather than create learning communities geared to advance democratic societies.”</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/lani-guinier-says-us-needs-reform-and-should-learn-other-democracies#commentsMetro AreaNationWashington BureauWorldGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNMon, 04 May 2015 13:17:27 +0000Eric Black92055 at http://www.minnpost.comBernie Sanders’ presidential run will be a tonic for those who crave straight talkhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/bernie-sanders-presidential-run-will-be-tonic-those-who-crave-straight-talk
<p dir="ltr">Bernie Sanders voted against the Iraq War resolution of 2002. He wasn’t the only one, but it’s a badge of honor, courage and good judgment.</p><p dir="ltr">Sanders voted for the Affordable Care Act, but always made clear that he considered it a weak half-step compared to single-payer.</p><p dir="ltr">He voted against Bill Clinton’s “Defense of Marriage Act,” which has since been struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court as an unconstitutional form of discrimination against gays and lesbians.</p><p dir="ltr">Today he will file papers to formally become a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president (even though he’s not a Democrat).</p><p dir="ltr">He says he has never run an attack ad in his long political career and he won’t start now. He says he won’t have any SuperPACs helping him.</p><p dir="ltr">Those for whom the meaning of life is handicapping the likely outcome of political races will likely rate him an ultra-longshot, and I have no serious reason to doubt them. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/30/us/politics/bernie-sanders-campaign-for-president.html?_r=0">The New York Times story this morning about his candidacy</a> quotes him as saying: “I think people should be a little bit careful underestimating me.”</p><p dir="ltr">His presence in the race might put some pressure on Hillary Clinton. Like most front-runners, she will try to energize the liberal base of the Democratic Party but will be reluctant to take strong, concrete liberal positions that might interfere with her appeal to moderate swing voters in the general election campaign. Sanders presence in the race will complicate those calculations a bit. The Times put it this way:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">Mr. Sanders’s bid is considered a longshot, but his unflinching commitment to stances popular with the left — such as opposing foreign military interventions and reining in big banks — could force Mrs. Clinton to address these issues more deeply.</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">For those, like me, who crave honest conviction and straight talk (which the pundits have decided to call “authenticity”), Sanders will be a tonic, however long he lasts in the race.</p><p dir="ltr">Writing <a href="about:blank">this morning for Rolling Stone,</a> Matt Taibbi, who followed Sanders around for a month, described him thus:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">He is the rarest of Washington animals, a completely honest person. If he's motivated by anything other than a desire to use his influence to protect people who can't protect themselves, I've never seen it. Bernie Sanders is the kind of person who goes to bed at night thinking about how to increase the <a href="http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/sen-sanders-fights-to-reverse-liheap-cuts">heating-oil aid program</a> for the poor.</p><p dir="ltr">This is why his <a href="http://digital.vpr.net/post/bernie-sanders-announce-presidential-run">entrance into the 2016 presidential race</a> is a great thing and not a mere footnote to the inevitable coronation of Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee. If the press is smart enough to grasp it, his entrance into the race makes for a profound storyline that could force all of us to ask some very uncomfortable questions.</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">By the way, I mentioned above the strangeness of Sanders seeking the Democratic nomination, since he is not a Democrat. He calls himself a “democratic socialist.” He caucuses with the Senate Democrats, which enables him to have better committee assignments (for example, he is the ranking minority member on the Senate Budget Committee) in exchange for which he agrees to vote with the Dems on procedural but not substantive matters.</p><p dir="ltr">In some of his early successful campaigns (for mayor of Burlington, Vt.) he benefitted from a multi-party split. Vermont Democrats seem to have ultimately figured out that running a candidate against him would only increase the chances of a Republican winning the seat.</p><p dir="ltr">In recent campaigns, he has reached an agreement with the Vermont Democratic Party that enables his name to be on the Democratic primary ballot, with the understanding that he would decline the Dem nomination if he won it. He does win it, and does decline, but no one else gets the Dem nomination, which enables him to go on the ballot as an independent often with only a Republican opponent or some minor parties. In his most recent race (2012) he defeated his Republican opponent by 71-25 percent.</p><p dir="ltr">Sanders released some excerpts from the statement he will be making to declare this candidacy. It includes:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;" dir="ltr">"It's not just that, for forty years, the middle class has been disappearing. It's that 99% of all new income is going to the top 1%, and the grotesque level of wealth and income inequality today is worse than at any time since the late 1920s. The people at the top are grabbing all the new wealth and income for themselves, and the rest of America is being squeezed and left behind."</p><p dir="ltr"><a href="http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/29909-i-will-be-a-candidate-for-president"> You can read the longer excerpt here</a>.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/bernie-sanders-presidential-run-will-be-tonic-those-who-crave-straight-talk#commentsBarack ObamaNationGeographyPoliticsINNBernie SandersBill Clintonelection 2016Hillary ClintonThu, 30 Apr 2015 15:44:41 +0000Eric Black92020 at http://www.minnpost.comDespite wisecrack, it’s not Scalia’s court on gay marriage anymorehttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/despite-wisecrack-it-s-not-scalia-s-court-gay-marriage-anymore
<p dir="ltr">An anti-gay-rights “demonstrator” briefly disrupted the U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments Tuesday on the question of whether same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.</p><p dir="ltr">The man rose from the gallery yelling: “If you support gay marriage, you will burn in Hell! …It’s an abomination!”</p><p dir="ltr">In the awkward moment after the man was taken away by security, Justice Antonin Scalia remarked: “That was rather refreshing, actually.”</p><p dir="ltr">Writing for the New Yorker, long-time Supreme Court analyst Jeffrey Toobin made this the entry point for <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/on-gay-marriage-its-not-scalias-court">his short piece about the day’s historic hearing.</a> Toobin didn’t care for Scalia’s crack and didn’t assume that it was just a joke meant to break the tension after the interruption of the day’s otherwise dignified proceedings. Wrote Toobin:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">Scalia more or less shared the protester’s view of the immorality of homosexuality, and … he regards the Court’s toleration of gay people as one of the great disasters of his nearly three decades as a Justice.</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">Toobin is apparently pretty sick of Scalia, whom he described as “the Fox News Justice, who appears to use conservative talking points to prepare for oral arguments.” He gave an example or two of that from the day’s proceedings.</p><p dir="ltr">But he also noted that none of the other conservative justices, including those who are universally expected to vote against using this case to nationalize a right of gays to marry, said anything at all disparaging about homosexuality. Toobin wrote that:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">Scalia’s counter-outburst was a notable contrast to the respectful tone of the rest of the argument, including from his fellow-conservatives. It is one measure of the success of the gay-rights movement that all the other Justices felt compelled to phrase their questions in ways that honored the humanity of gay people.</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">Toobin ended his short piece this way:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">The most likely outcome still looks like a victory for the plaintiffs and marriage equality in all fifty states. At a minimum, even before the decision is announced, the argument itself was an example of how much the country, and the Court, has changed on the subject of gay rights. On this issue at least, it’s not Scalia’s Court anymore.</p></blockquote>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/despite-wisecrack-it-s-not-scalia-s-court-gay-marriage-anymore#commentsNationCourtsGeographyPoliticsINNAntonin Scaliagay marriageWed, 29 Apr 2015 16:14:53 +0000Eric Black92008 at http://www.minnpost.comWho elects these clowns?http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/who-elects-these-clowns
<p>According to <a href="http://www.quinnipiac.edu/news-and-events/quinnipiac-university-poll/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2222">a fresh Quinnipiac Poll, </a>President Obama's approval rating continues a small, slow recovery from its former depths, but at 44 percent approval and 49 percent disapproval, it remains below water.</p><p>On the other hand, these numbers are a ringing endorsement compared to the (dis)approval ratings of both party caucuses in Congress.</p><p>Voters disapprove of Democrats in Congress by 30 percent approve and 61 percent disapprove score, but even that looks good compared to a negative 22-69 percent for Republicans in Congress.</p><p>Also in the poll, voters favored the tentative agreement with Iran over its nuclear program, but aren't confident that it will succeed, favor diplomacy over war as a way to restrain Iran and disapprove of the letter to Iran signed by most Senate Republicans, but favor subjecting the agreement to congressional approval.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/who-elects-these-clowns#commentsArmed ForcesBarack ObamaCongressNationGeographyPoliticsINNIranMon, 27 Apr 2015 15:49:19 +0000Eric Black91970 at http://www.minnpost.comKrugman to Obamacare doomsayers: Nothing you predicted has come truehttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/krugman-obamacare-doomsayers-nothing-you-predicted-has-come-true
<p>Paul Krugman has a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/27/opinion/paul-krugman-nobody-said-that.html?hp&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;module=c-column-top-span-region&amp;region=c-column-top-span-region&amp;WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&amp;_r=0&amp;assetType=opinion">strongly argued column Monday morning </a>that's about two big things. One: Obamacare is working better than even its supporters predicted. Two: In today's post-fact society, none of its critics are acknowledging the wrongness of their predictions of doom.</p><p>He goes through the major predictions from the right ("rate shock," with premiums doubling, "death spiral" in which only the sickest sign up, more people would lose coverage than gain it, the cost of the program would drive the deficit to the sky, and more).</p><p>None of it happened. The opposite happened. Uninsured rates dropping. Cost-containment mechanisms working. Average premiums last year even lower than the bill's architects predicted. Writes Krugman: "This is what policy success looks like, and it should have the critics engaged in soul-searching about why they got it so wrong. But no."</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">Which brings him to the second level of Krugman's preachment. In a truth-seeking society, those who make dire predictions of disaster, who turn out to be wrong, should come forward, acknowledge they were wrong, seek to learn from their mistakes going forward. But who among the wrong predictors is coming forward to do that? On the contrary, Krugman says, those who made the predictions are denying they ever made them. Concludes Krugman:</p><blockquote><p style="padding-left: 30px;">Policy debates always involve more than just the specific issue on the table. They are also clashes of world views. Predictions of debt disaster, a debased dollar, and Obama death spirals reflect the same ideology, and the utter failure of these predictions should inspire major doubts about that ideology.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;" class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="244" data-total-count="4845" itemprop="articleBody">And there’s also a moral issue involved. Refusing to accept responsibility for past errors is a serious character flaw in one’s private life. It rises to the level of real wrongdoing when policies that affect millions of lives are at stake.</p></blockquote><p></p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/krugman-obamacare-doomsayers-nothing-you-predicted-has-come-true#commentsBarack ObamaNationGeographyPoliticsINNAffordable Care ActPaul KrugmanMon, 27 Apr 2015 14:05:03 +0000Eric Black91965 at http://www.minnpost.comBrian Atwood’s advice for sorting out global disorder: Think in contexthttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/brian-atwood-s-advice-sorting-out-global-disorder-think-context
<div class="image float-right"><img class="imagecache-article_detail" src="/sites/default/files/imagecache/article_detail/BrianAtwood225.jpg" alt="Brian Atwood" title="Brian Atwood" /><div class="credit">REUTERS</div><div class="caption">Brian Atwood</div></div><p dir="ltr">Brian Atwood, former dean of the U of M’s Humphrey School and a veteran of several jobs in the U.S. State Department, spoke Thursday on “Global Disorder and What We Need from the Next President.”</p><p dir="ltr">Atwood, whose voice and demeanor always ooze a deep calm, and who begs observers of world affairs to keep things in context, said the short answer to the “what we need from the next president” question was: “Someone who can walk and chew gum at the same time.” A bit more on that below.</p><p dir="ltr">Speaking of thinking in context, to explain why the world seems so disorderly, Atwood compared the present to the immediate post-World War II period. Since 1945, the world population has grown from 2.2 billion to 7.2 billion. Extra people, extra problems, Atwood implied.</p><p dir="ltr">The United States in 1945, with its economy intact in contrast with the post-war rubble of Europe and Asia, was the clearly dominant power. The United Nations was created — by the victorious powers who set up a mechanism by which any of the big five could veto major actions — to keep the peace. But over the years, the ability of the Big Five to agree on things eroded, leaving the U.N. “only as strong as the members want it to be,” with coherent action often being vetoed.</p><p dir="ltr">During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union couldn’t agree on much. During the Nixon years, Henry Kissinger referred to a new “trilateral world,” in which China had joined the Big Two and made it a Big Three. China continues to rise and its ambitions to dominate Asia are causing problems for many of America’s long-time allies like Japan, South Korea and the Philippines. Atwood expressed hope that China is beginning to understand that “with global power come global responsibilities.”</p><p dir="ltr">Many countries that were flat on their backs after World War II, and others that had always been poor and weak, have now risen to the point that they have to be taken seriously as economic and geopolitical rivals, Atwood said during a forum at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Russia and Putin</h4><p dir="ltr">Actions by Russian President Vladimir Putin are also designed to reassert Russia’s role. Atwood described Putin as a “difficult kind of person” whose actions are “really testing NATO.” But Putin has miscalculated by his aggressive policies toward the Ukraine, Atwood said. NATO has become stronger in reaction to the Russian aggressiveness. The recent EU action to charge Gazprom, the Russian natural-gas giant, with antitrust violations was an indication that Europe does not feel as beholden to nor intimidated by Russia as Putin probably believed.</p><p dir="ltr">The world keeps getting more complicated than a bilateral or a trilateral understanding can encompass. But the United States remains the only power that can project a potent combination of economic, military and political strength to all parts of the world, Atwood said.</p><div class="float-left"><div class="minnpost-ads-ad minnpost-ads-ad-Middle "><script type="text/javascript">OAS_AD("Middle");</script></div></div><p dir="ltr">On the Mideast, Atwood attributed much of the current disorder to the Sunni-Shia conflict. That “hornets’ nest” may have been broken open by the U.S. decision to invade Iraq, Atwood said.</p><p dir="ltr">Staying with the Mideast, Atwood suggested that the recent expansion of Iran’s influence may not be sustainable. When you get outside of the predominantly Shia population of Iran, he said, only 20 percent of the rest of the Mideast is Shiite. If Iran thinks it can get involved on all the fronts of the Shia-Sunni conflict, it will likely get overextended. By its involvement in the endless Syrian civil war, Iran may have found “its Vietnam,” Atwood said, which I took to mean that it will ultimately become weaker by trying to do too much, as the United States did in Vietnam.</p><p dir="ltr">On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, notwithstanding recent comments by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israelis for the most part understand that “the two-state solution is the only solution.” The question even two-state-deal-oriented Israelis worry about is whether there is a Palestinian leader strong enough to deliver the peace that Israelis would expect from a land-for-peace deal.</p><p dir="ltr">Asked about the steady stream of criticism aimed to President Obama over foreign policy, Atwood rejected as “too easy” the criticism of all the U.S. problems in the world derive from Obama’s “fecklessness.” His word for Obama’s foreign policy was “thoughtful.”</p><h4 dir="ltr">Next president</h4><p dir="ltr">I promised a bit more on what Atwood thinks we need from the next president other than the “walk-and-chew-gum” test. He also said “we don’t need a hairy-chested person who thinks military power is the answer to everything.”</p><p dir="ltr">It should probably be noted that Atwood’s background is in the Democratic Party, including the Bill Clinton administration, and that he left his previous tenure at the Humphrey School to work under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.</p><p dir="ltr">Political Scientist Larry Jacobs, who was recruited by Atwood to run the Humphrey School’s Center for the Study of Politics and Government, asked if Atwood expected to be tapped for service in a possible Hillary Clinton administration. Atwood demurred and said he expects her to find younger talent. Atwood is 72. He currently teaches at the Humphrey School.</p><p>He called Clinton’s record as secretary of state “commendable,” and noted that many recent presidents have come to office lacking much foreign policy experience. “Bill Clinton didn’t have it,” he said. “George W. Bush didn’t have it. &nbsp;But he made what I think was a big mistake of assuming Dick Cheney did.”</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/brian-atwood-s-advice-sorting-out-global-disorder-think-context#commentsArmed ForcesBarack ObamaMinneapolisNationWorldGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNBenjamin NetanyahuBrian AtwoodGeorge W. BushHillary ClintonIranLarry JacobsFri, 24 Apr 2015 19:37:14 +0000Eric Black91957 at http://www.minnpost.comDennis Ross’ coherent way of understanding the Mideast — and a strong counter argumenthttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/dennis-ross-coherent-way-understanding-mideast-and-strong-counter-argument
<p dir="ltr">This post will make a sharp turn in the middle because something unexpected and cool happened during a University of Minnesota forum Thursday starring Dennis Ross, who has worked on Middle East issues under every recent president, of both parties, starting with Reagan.</p><p dir="ltr">Ross spoke at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs on the question<a href="http://blog.lib.umn.edu/gpa/globalnotes/2015/04/-with-dennis-ross-april.php">: “Is a coherent policy in the Middle East possible?”</a></p><p dir="ltr">It is extremely difficult for average Americans to understand the Mideast turmoil or to tell, in effect, the good guys from the bad guys. Is it fundamentally a Sunni-Shiite conflict? Is it about Iran (which is populated by Persians) seeking dominance over Arabs? Those divides are in play, but Ross wanted to suggest a coherent way of understanding the conflict, which he believes suggests coherent goal for U.S. policy.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Mideast dichotomy</h4><p dir="ltr">The dichotomy Ross suggests is that the warring parties can be divided into two groups: the radical Islamists, some of whom are Sunni and some Shia, and the non-Islamists, which also include Sunnis and Shiites. The goal of U.S. policy, he said, should be to weaken the Islamists and strengthen the non-Islamists.</p><p dir="ltr">The Islamists he named were Iran (a predominantly Shiite nation), the Islamic State or ISIS (Sunni) and Hezbollah (Shia). Hezbollah and Iran are allied but they oppose ISIS. As Ross said: “They aren’t all on the same side, and sometimes they fight each other, but they share certain attributes,” which he listed:</p><p dir="ltr">“Number one, they want Sharia law to govern all parts of life and to shape all institutions, but even further, they don’t believe in civil authority. The supreme authority is not a civil authority, it is a religious authority.</p><p dir="ltr">“Two, they don’t accept the legitimacy of the individual states in the region. This is obvious in the case of ISIS, which proposes to form a caliphate that would replace all the existing states. But militias controlled by Iran are operated in several Mideast states and in all cases, their goal is to break down those state structures.</p><p dir="ltr">“Three, they want to remake the region in their image.</p><p dir="ltr">“Four, they view terror as a legitimate instrument for remaking the region.</p><p dir="ltr">“Five, they don’t accept the principle of pluralism.</p><p dir="ltr">“Six, they don’t want the U.S. there. They want us out.</p><p dir="ltr">“And seven, they reject Israel’s right to exist.”</p><p dir="ltr">Who are the Mideast players that Ross rates as non-Islamists? He listed Jordan, Egypt, the Emirates and then “there comes a point at which I’m going to say Saudi Arabia, and you’re going to say ‘huh?’ Saudi Arabia that is more responsible than anyone for the Salafi ideology that ISIS embodies?</p><div class="image float-right"><img class="imagecache-article_detail" src="/sites/default/files/imagecache/article_detail/DennisRoss210.jpg" alt="Dennis Ross" title="Dennis Ross" /><div class="credit">REUTERS/Chip East</div><div class="caption">Dennis Ross</div></div><p dir="ltr">“But I put Saudi Arabia into that category which begins to highlight that this isn’t such a simple distinction. Why do I put Saudi Arabia on the list? First, there’s been some evolution on the part of Saudi Arabia, for example, of the effect of their funding of madrassas around the world, which they now realize has come back to become a threat against them. They are appointing a different kind of clergy.</p><p dir="ltr">“They have become more mindful of the dangers to themselves of an ideology that they themselves produced. They’re not trying to remake the region. They accept the existing state structure. They are not desirous of seeing the United States out of the region. They are interested in preserving the state system. America does need to preserve the state system.”</p><p dir="ltr">If he was currently advising the Obama administration, he would say that “every decision we make between now and January 2015 should be to make the Islamists weaker than they are today and to make the non-Islamists stronger than they are today.”</p><p dir="ltr">I kind of liked Ross’ list of the attributes of Islamism, and I can see why he condemns many of those qualities. But I couldn’t help noticing that his lists consisted of first, the leading states and non-state groups that are most hostile to the United States, and second, a list of states that already provide extensive military and economic cooperation with Washington.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Surprising turn</h4><p dir="ltr">But it was during the question-and-answer period after Ross’ opening remarks that things took a surprisingly interesting turn, at least for me.</p><p dir="ltr">Dean Eric Schwartz of the Humphrey School, who also has extensive experience in diplomatic and national security posts, although more associated with Democratic administrations, was the moderator. Schwartz, noting that Ross’s approach sounded like it called for more U.S. activism in the region to tilt the playing field in favor of the designated good actors, asked Ross about how this desire to manage the balance of power would square with President Obama’s fairly famous determination to “not do stupid stuff.”</p><p dir="ltr">Ross said yes, the policy he advocates would require the United States to be engaged and to do what it could to strengthen the non-Islamists and weaken the Islamists. Sometimes, Ross said, the lack of doing something for fear that it might be stupid stuff turns out to be the worst policy of all. He then suggested that Obama had stayed out of the Syrian conflict too long and allowed that situation to become chaos.</p><p dir="ltr">“What drove the president to stay away was that he saw the situation as a potential quagmire,” Ross said. The legacy of [U.S. military involvement] in Afghanistan and Iraq made him exceedingly reluctant, and he focused on the cost of action rather than the cost of inaction.”</p><p dir="ltr">Then Schwartz warned explicitly that — notwithstanding his respect and admiration for Ross’s views — he was going to do something “provocative.” That turned out to be suggesting that perhaps Obama had learned the correct lesson from the Iraq war.</p><p dir="ltr">Schwartz then brought up the fact that Ross was among those who signed public letters organized by the neo-conservative Project for A New American Century, letters that made the case for invading Iraq in order to get rid of the weapons of mass destruction (which, of course, weren’t there) and that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would produce democracy in Iraq and spread similar blessings across the region. Only that didn’t happen.</p><p dir="ltr">I could say more here about how badly the decision to invade Iraq has turned out and how wrong most of the justifications for “Shock and Awe” and the promised benefits of “Operation Iraqi Freedom” turned out to be. But perhaps you have already heard.</p><p dir="ltr">The moment was fraught and actually pretty cool. Schwartz seemed to be wondering out loud how his honored guest, as a supporter of a military action that turned out so badly, could be faulting Obama for reluctance to inject the United States into the Syrian civil war.</p><p dir="ltr">Ross didn’t get flustered.</p><p dir="ltr">“The key is always to learn the right lessons,” he replied. He then told a funny story about talking the Iraq stuff over with Henry Kissinger before the war, the point of which was Kissinger remained skeptical about whether Saddam really had the stockpiles of WMD while Ross believed that the Bush administration couldn’t be saying the things they were saying unless they were absolutely sure.</p><p dir="ltr">Then he told another fairly self-serving tale about a lot of really good advice he gave to Condoleezza Rice about things to do to make sure that after the U.S. troops took over Iraq the situation wouldn’t turn into chaos, with a strong implication that if his advice had been followed, the transition to post-Saddam Iraq would have gone a lot better.</p><p dir="ltr">He ended with: “We can’t prove what would have happened if we had done nothing in Iraq. We do know that by doing nothing in Syria we’ve seen what has happened. And my point to you would be that we should always be mindful of the cost of action, but we also have to think through the cost of inaction. In Syria, we didn’t think through the cost of inaction. In the case of Bush, they didn’t think through the cost of action. So the right posture is to play chess and not checkers.”</p><p>I assumed that Schwartz, having made his point, would let it drop. But he didn’t. He said that even if the United States had done a lot of things better in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion, the situation wouldn’t be a whole lot better “because the task was just that difficult.”</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/dennis-ross-coherent-way-understanding-mideast-and-strong-counter-argument#commentsArmed ForcesBarack ObamaMinneapolisNationGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNDennis RossGeorge W. BushIraqMiddle EastFri, 24 Apr 2015 14:54:11 +0000Eric Black91948 at http://www.minnpost.comAs the world remembers the Armenian genocide, why won’t Obama use the ‘G-word’?http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/world-remembers-armenian-genocide-why-won-t-obama-use-g-word
<p dir="ltr">During the latter stages of World War I, the Ottoman Turkish Empire systematically killed — by grotesque means that would shock the conscience of anyone with a conscience — an estimated 1 million to 1.5 million of its Armenian citizens in an attempt to eliminate the large Armenian minority from Turkey’s future.</p><p dir="ltr">The Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern) believes the correct number may be even higher than 1.5 million and estimates that the slaughter killed about 75 percent of Armenians in the world at the time.</p><p dir="ltr">The anniversary of this tragic crime is observed on April 24 because that was the date in 1915 when the genocide began. That makes Friday the centennial. It will be observed across the world, the United States and Minnesota but not by Turkey, which still denies that the genocide occurred, although it was well-established at the time, written about in newspapers around the world, many of the perpetrators admitted their crimes in international tribunals and many were convicted and executed for them.</p><p dir="ltr">At the time, it was not called an act of “genocide,” but that’s because the word “genocide” hadn’t been coined yet. And when the word was coined after World War II, the man responsible (Yale Law Professor Raphael Lemkin) made specific reference to the slaughter of the Armenians as a prime example.</p><p dir="ltr">The governments of two dozen nations have embraced the term “genocide,” but no American president ever has, including Barack Obama, who as a candidate in 2008, promised to “recognize the Armenian genocide.” A bit more on that below.</p><p dir="ltr">Ellen Kennedy, executive director of <a href="http://worldwithoutgenocide.org/">World Without Genocide</a> in St. Paul, <a href="http://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2015/04/100-years-later-obama-should-formally-recognize-armenian-genocide">wrote a Community Voices &nbsp;column for MinnPost</a> earlier this week about the genocide. Her theme was the damage that the long-standing denial does to both the perpetrators and victims of such a crime.</p><p dir="ltr">Turkish intellectuals have occasionally sought to bring the matter to light in that country but some of them have been prosecuted for the crime of “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_301_%28Turkish_Penal_Code%29">insulting Turkishness</a>.”</p><p dir="ltr">My strong feelings about the Armenian genocide date from an interview I did in 2000, during my Star Tribune days, with Vahakn Dadrian, an Armenian historian. Dadrian was born in Turkey after the war and has held academic positions all around the world. He is best known as a historian of the genocide (in which his family lost many members).</p><p dir="ltr">Of course all genocidal campaigns are brutal and horrible. But the thing that stuck with me from that long-ago interview was Dadrian’s list of some of the methods Turks used to kill Armenians who had done nothing wrong. For example, quoting from that Strib piece:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">In a policy that Dadrian said was “unparalleled in the annals of human history,” the Turks “decided to rely not on soldiers but on bloodthirsty criminals.” Dadrian said 30,000 to 35,000 convicts were released from prison to participate in the slaughter.</p><p dir="ltr">With a world war raging, Dadrian said, Ottoman officials were anxious not to waste bullets or powder on the Armenians, so they employed four main methods to kill the Armenians:</p><ul><li>Many were beaten to death or killed with daggers, swords and axes.</li></ul><ul><li>Massive drowning operations were conducted in the tributaries of the Euphrates River and the Black Sea. Bargeloads of Armenians were intentionally sunk. Dadrian, quoting [Henry]Morganthau [who was U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman court at the time], said that in places the Armenian corpses became so numerous that the rivers were forced out of their beds, in one case changing&nbsp; the course of a river for a 100-meter stretch.</li></ul><p dir="ltr">The method that Dadrian called “the most fiendish” was to pack Armenian women and children into stables or haylofts and then set&nbsp;them ablaze, burning the victims alive. Dadrian estimated that about 150,000 were killed by this method.</p><p dir="ltr">Hundreds of thousands more died of hunger, thirst or exposure during forced marches in the desert. Dadrian said the Armenians were told they were being relocated but were marched along routes chosen to maximize the chances that none of the marchers would survive.</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">That was what I meant above by a means of killing that would shock the conscience of anyone who has a conscience.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Obama’s statements</h4><p dir="ltr">Now on to Obama and the “G-word.”</p><p dir="ltr">Against the objections of the Turkish government, many countries of the world have embraced the word “genocide” in official statements about the mass slaughter. Germany — the country responsible for the largest systematic genocide in history, but also a country that has long accepted full, direct blame for its crimes and which has gone to huge lengths to publicly atone — recently joined the list. Pope Francis recently became the first pontiff to do so. Israel’s Knesset has never officially embraced the word, but just Wednesday <a href="http://www.thetower.org/1920-breaking-israels-president-endorses-popes-comments-on-armenian-genocide/">the president of Israel endorsed the Pope’s statement of recognition</a>. Many U.S. states, including Minnesota, have used the word “genocide” in official statements about the Turkish crime against the Armenians.</p><p dir="ltr">But no American president, other than Ronald Reagan, ever has. After Reagan, in a 1981 proclamation made a passing reference to the genocide against the Armenians, Turkey protested so strenuously that the State Department backed down, saying that the earlier statement had not reflected official U.S. policy.</p><p dir="ltr">John Kerry, when he was the Democratic nominee in 2004, promised to use the word "genocide" to describe the slaughter, but he never became president.</p><p dir="ltr">Obama, the next Democratic nominee, said while running in 2008:</p><p dir="ltr">“The Armenian genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence. The facts are undeniable. An official policy that calls on diplomats to distort the historical facts is an untenable policy.</p><p dir="ltr">“As president I will recognize the Armenian Genocide,” Obama promised. But he hasn’t done so.</p><p dir="ltr">Turkey is a long-standing and important ally of the United States. It is a NATO member. It is the most legitimate democracy among the predominantly Muslim nations of the Mideast. Leaders of Turkey have no doubt communicated to President Obama that U.S.-Turkey relations would be damaged if Obama broke the long-standing policy of American presidents to stop short of the G-word.</p><p dir="ltr">Still, nobody forced Obama to promise that he would “as president” “recognize the Armenian Genocide.” Armenians who had hoped that on the occasion of the centennial Obama might decide to use the G-word were disappointed. <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-obama-armenian-genocide-20150421-story.html">On Tuesday, the White House announced</a> that Obama, who will make some kind of statement about the centennial, will not use the word “genocide.”</p><p dir="ltr">There’s something weird about this. Everyone who cares about this issue knows what Obama believes. He has never taken back what he said as a candidate, but he has never repeated it as president — which explicitly violates the promise that he made.</p><p dir="ltr">What he did say – and he said it in <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-By-President-Obama-To-The-Turkish-Parliament/">a 2009 speech to the Turkish Parliament</a> – was this:</p><p dir="ltr">“History is often tragic, but unresolved. It can be a heavy weight. Each country must work through its past. And reckoning with the past can help us seize a better future. I know there's strong views in this chamber about the terrible events of 1915. And while there's been a good deal of commentary about my views, it's really about how the Turkish and Armenian people deal with the past. And the best way forward for the Turkish and Armenian people is a process that works through the past in a way that is honest, open and constructive.”</p><p dir="ltr">Presumably, because of the importance of U.S.-Turkey relations and because of the intense feelings in the Turkish government, he simply won’t, as president, say the word — the accurate word and the word he formerly used — that would mean so much to Armenians and be so inflammatory to Turks.</p><h4 dir="ltr">‘Century of denial’</h4><p dir="ltr">I asked Lou Ann Matossian, who is on the board of the committee that planned the centennial events, how big a deal this is. She said it was very big:</p><p dir="ltr">“We need Turkey in the Middle East. It’s not a good time,’” she said, mocking the excuse that is always given. “They’ve been saying that since the 1920s. When is it going to be a good time?</p><p dir="ltr">“What is Turkey going to do in the end to stop people from using the word ‘genocide?’” Matossian asked. “Eventually with the number of countries recognizing it, it’s going to be too costly for Turkey to suspend their relations with that many countries.</p><p dir="ltr">“By refusing to use the word, [Obama] enables a century of denial. Denial is not just negation. Denial is an active campaign to kill historical memory. Denial is about the erasure, the suppression of Armenian cultural identity. Denial is the suppression of journalists and scholars who dare to speak about it. Denial manufactures a controversy where none actually exists. President Obama, by not calling a spade a spade, is perpetuating this game.</p><p dir="ltr">“Denial is the murder of Hrant Dink,” an ethnic Armenian journalist who argued for Turkey to admit its historic crime and who was assassinated by a Turkish nationalist in 2007.</p><p dir="ltr">“Without truth there cannot be real reconciliation. There’s a reason why when people talk about truth and reconciliation, the word ‘truth’ comes first.”</p><h4 dir="ltr">Local events</h4><p dir="ltr">There are many events commemorating the centennial. Here are <a href="http://www.chgs.umn.edu/news/centernews.php?entry=434088">several put on by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies</a>.</p><p dir="ltr">Matossian said the major event sponsored by her group will start Friday at 7 p.m. at St. Sahag Armenian Church, 203 N. Howell St., St. Paul. Confirmed speakers, in order of appearance, are:</p><ul><li>Fr. Tadeos Barseghyan, pastor, St. Sahag Armenian Church.</li></ul><ul><li>Professor Alejandro Baer, Stephen C. Feinstein chair and director, University of Minnesota Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.</li></ul><ul><li>U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar.</li></ul><ul><li>Steve Hunegs, executive director, Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas.</li></ul><ul><li>U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum.</li></ul><ul><li>U.S. Rep. Tim Walz.</li></ul><ul><li>Leroy Erickson, president, Armenian Cultural Organization of Minnesota.</li></ul><p><strong>Update:</strong> Two corrections: An earlier version of this post incorrectly attributed the source of the estimate that the genocide killed 75 percent of the Armenians alive at the time. Also the original post said that no president has ever used the word "genocide" to describe the slaughter of Armenians. As reflected in the corrected passage above, Ronald Reagan did use the word in a proclamation, but the State Department later backed off from the reference.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/world-remembers-armenian-genocide-why-won-t-obama-use-g-word#commentsBarack ObamaMetro AreaNationWorldGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNArmeniaJohn KerryTurkeyThu, 23 Apr 2015 13:19:52 +0000Eric Black91920 at http://www.minnpost.comCarl Bernstein makes the case for ‘the best obtainable version of the truth’http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/carl-bernstein-makes-case-best-obtainable-version-truth
<p dir="ltr">“The best obtainable version of the truth.”</p><p dir="ltr">The famous Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein is fairly obsessed with the phrase. I’m not saying this in a bad way.</p><p dir="ltr">On stage in Minneapolis Thursday night at the <a href="http://westminsterforum.org/">great Westminster Town Hall Forum</a>, Bernstein introduced the phrase “the best obtainable version of the truth” (hereafter TBOVOTT) early in the talk and then circled back to it again and again as the summary of what journalism should but too often does not produce and what the public should but does not want.</p><p dir="ltr">“People are not looking for the best obtainable version of the truth,” he said, because much of the audience for news and information cares less about reading or hearing TBVOTT than on having its ideological biases confirmed. And “journalism is not committed to the presentation of the best obtainable version of the truth.”</p><p dir="ltr">As a result, “we can’t have a fact-based debate in this country,” he said. We have lost “the ability of each side to accept the sincerity and good will of the other. “ As a result, “Congress is totally dysfunctional” and there is “no good will” across partisan or ideological lines, and little ability to compromise for the greater good. Forty years of “scorched earth politics” and “culture war,” Bernstein said, “has depleted us.” As a result, he said, “I’m not optimistic about what is going on in the politics of this country.”</p><p dir="ltr">No kidding.</p><p dir="ltr">Bernstein never defined TBOVOTT precisely but I suppose it almost defines itself. I think it purports to be a simultaneously grand and humble definition of what journalists are supposed to put in the paper and on the air every day. The truth, that’s pretty grand. But if TBOVOTT is only a version of the truth, well, that seems to acknowledge that there’s no single and only truth. And if it’s just the best “version” of the truth that was “obtainable” within the confines of time and space and wisdom and within the talents of those assembling it on a given day… well, that’s why I call it humble as well as grand. And to that degree, I share his nostalgia for the (perhaps mythical) good old days.</p><p dir="ltr">Bernstein did single out Fox News as the leading factor that led the nation’s news consumers astray. He acknowledged that there are leftier versions of biased journalism, but Fox was the pioneer and Fox is “the most potent political force” to come onto the scene over the past 30 years even though, he added, Fox often reports information that is “demonstrably untrue.”</p><p dir="ltr">(By the way, I assumed TBOVOTT was a grand principle Bernstein had been taught as a young journalist, but when I Googled it up, there are lots of references but they were all attributed to Bernstein.)</p><h4 dir="ltr">On the Clintons</h4><p dir="ltr">In 2008, on the occasion of her first campaign for president, Bernstein produced a book titled “A Woman in Charge: The life of Hillary Rodham Clinton,” which, of course, has new relevance on the occasion of her current second presidential candidacy and which he was available to sign last night.</p><div class="image float-right"><img class="imagecache-article_detail" src="/sites/default/files/imagecache/article_detail/CarlBernsteinWestminster250.jpg" alt="Carl Bernstein" title="Carl Bernstein" /><div class="credit">Westminster Town Hall Forum</div><div class="caption">Carl Bernstein</div></div><p dir="ltr">Observing the Clintons, he said, one is struck by the “sheer spectacle,” by which he meant the doings of Bill and Hillary Clinton contain “large parts soap opera.” &nbsp;He added that the Republican Party is dedicated to “wiping out Clintonism,” which adds to the drama.</p><p dir="ltr">Bernstein mentioned just two ideas for making things better. He would favor a constitutional amendment that would overrule the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC">Citizens United decision of the U.S. Supreme Court</a> and impose limits on campaign spending, and he would favor the creation of a “compulsory program of national service for all young people.”</p><p>Bernstein’s talk, which was really a Q and A session with former MPR host/interviewer Gary Eichten, will be broadcast on MPR at noon Monday. MinnPost, by the way, was a co-sponsor of the event.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/carl-bernstein-makes-case-best-obtainable-version-truth#commentsMediaMinneapolisNationBusinessGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNCarl BernsteinFox NewsWatergateFri, 17 Apr 2015 13:40:44 +0000Eric Black91848 at http://www.minnpost.comJ Street leader says Netanyahu’s government is risking Israel’s survivalhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/j-street-leader-says-netanyahu-s-government-risking-israel-s-survival
<div class="image float-right"><img class="imagecache-article_detail" src="/sites/default/files/imagecache/article_detail/JeremyBenAmi225.jpg" alt="Jeremy Ben-Ami" title="Jeremy Ben-Ami" /><div class="caption">Jeremy Ben-Ami</div></div><p dir="ltr">Israel’s survival, its nature and its character are at risk because of the opposition of the right-wing government to a two-state solution, Jeremy Ben-Ami, founder and president of J Street, told a University of Minnesota audience Tuesday.</p><p dir="ltr">A solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is “available,” and the results would represent a “win-win” for Israel, Ben-Ami said. But the reelection of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the likely formation of the most right-wing government coalition in Israeli history undermine the chances of reaching such an outcome.</p><p dir="ltr">U.S. policy is, and long has been, to favor a two-state solution, he said. Netanyahu promised late in the recent campaign that no such outcome will occur while he is in office. Ben-Ami apparently believes that he was sincere (although Netanyahu reversed himself on that statement right after the election). The Palestinian side also is not able to deliver the necessary preconditions for a peaceful, two-state outcome, Ben-Ami said.</p><p dir="ltr">J Street, a liberal Jewish advocacy group based in the United States, believes the U.S. should continue to promote and pursue a two-state solution without Netanyahu’s cooperation by, for example, using the word “illegal” to refer to Israeli settlements on occupied territory and supporting a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a two-state solution.</p><p dir="ltr">Such a resolution would “lay down a marker,” would be President Obama’s legacy on the issue, and would clarify that the United States opposes all action by either side in the conflict that undermines or precludes progress toward a two-state solution.</p><p dir="ltr">Here are summaries of Ben-Ami’s points on some of the major topics he discussed:</p><p dir="ltr"><em>On the tentative U.S.-led deal with Iran over nuclear capabilities:</em></p><div class="float-left"><div class="minnpost-ads-ad minnpost-ads-ad-Middle "><script type="text/javascript">OAS_AD("Middle");</script></div></div><p dir="ltr">Ben-Ami said J Street would be “vocally in favor” of completing the deal. It’s not ideal, Ben-Ami said, but it’s the best of the three possible outcomes. &nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">The other two possibilities: If the United States rejects the deal, its partners among the P5-plus one (Russia, China, Britain, France, and Germany) will drop out of the sanctions regime and Iran will achieve its goal (relief from sanctions) without having to accept limits on or inspections of its nuclear program. Or some combination of the United States and Israel and perhaps some others could take military action against Iran.</p><p dir="ltr">Concerning a deal, a war or an end to sanctions with no concessions from Iran: “There is no fourth option,” Ben-Ami said. One could hope for a different or better deal, Ben-Ami said, but the parties have negotiated long and hard and “this is the deal.”</p><p dir="ltr"><em>On the recent trend toward partisanization of the U.S.-Israeli relationship:</em></p><p dir="ltr">Ben-Ami said yes, it is happening. Netanyahu’s decision to speak to Congress, against Obama’s wishes, at the invitation of the Republican speaker of the House, was the latest evidence. But he also said it was a mistake for Israel to appoint, as its ambassador to Washington, a former Republican operative (Ron Dermer). “Not the best choice,” Ben-Ami said.</p><p dir="ltr"><em>On the possibility that the Palestinians will seek prosecution of Israel through the International Court of Justice for the occupation:</em></p><p dir="ltr">Saeb Erekat, a long-time leader of the Palestinian Authority, has been calling the occupation a “war crime.” Ben-Ami said he sympathizes with the frustration of Erekat and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who believe that they’ve done everything that could reasonably be expected to embrace peaceful means of seeking a Palestinian state, but he doesn’t believe that trying to take the Israelis to the ICJ would be “fruitful.”</p><p dir="ltr"><em>On whether Israel can call itself a democracy:</em></p><p dir="ltr">Within the borders of Israel proper, Israel is undoubtedly a full-fledged “vibrant democracy,” but “when there are several million people who are under your governance who don’t participate in your democracy” that obviously undermines Israel’s democratic status and credentials.</p><p dir="ltr"><em>On how can Israel make peace as long as Hamas controls Gaza:</em></p><p dir="ltr">Israel is completely within its rights to refuse to deal with Hamas unless and until Hamas accepts Israel’s right to exist, renounces violence and agrees to abide by international deals that have been reached regarding the situation. Until such time as that comes to pass, Israel and the United States have to deal with those who have embraced those prerequisites and “put Gaza on the shelf” until there is a change in leadership there or a change on in those fundamental positions.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Exchange with student</h4><p dir="ltr">During the audience question portion of the event, Ben-Ami had an exchange with an Israeli student at the university that was my favorite portion of the event. It was also the only exchange during the Q and A that led to a spontaneous outburst of applause from the audience, so (with your permission) I’ll quote it at some length.</p><p dir="ltr">The student said that a lot of Israelis, not just lefties and activists, would like to see Israel pull out of the Palestinian territories but they are “afraid” of what might ensue. He asked Ben-Ami whether he could understand why many people worry about possible negative outcomes of such developments, including Israel’s “destruction.”</p><p dir="ltr">Ben-Ami replied:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“I don’t think there is any risk-free path. The choices in life are often between two or three or four different options, all of which have pluses and minuses, and you have to weigh the risks.</p><p dir="ltr">“My fear is that the risk of continuing down the path that Israel is on right now is far greater — that Israel will turn into a pariah state and will be isolated internationally; that Israel will lose its friends and lose its connection to the Jewish community here, and will be morally corrupt; that it will lose its democratic character.</p><p dir="ltr">“I see that risk as a very high probability if we stay on this path that we’re on.</p><p dir="ltr">“The path that I would advocate is clearly a path that has risks. Absolutely. This [the Middle East] is a very, very bad neighborhood. There are a lot of deep enemies of the State of Israel that want to hurt and eventually drive it out of existence, absolutely. So I do not deny in any way that the path that I advocate has risks. I would go further and say that the path that I advocate guarantees further conflict and violence.</p><p dir="ltr">“We have to understand that. There should be fear, because there’s something to be afraid of.</p><p dir="ltr">“This isn’t about nirvana and perfection and non-violent temper that we’re talking about. We’re talking about a situation in which Israel will be more secure, in which the possibility of world acceptance and regional acceptance is going to be higher, the quality of Israel’s democracy, its quality of life is going to be higher.</p><p>“There will always have to be a situation of qualitative military advantage for Israel, its relationship with the United States and from world sources. But those things are far more likely to be upheld if you go down a path that’s in accordance with world values and standards and world acceptance than if you go down a path of that leads you to be a pariah and outside the mainstream. So that’s the tradeoff.”</p></blockquote>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/j-street-leader-says-netanyahu-s-government-risking-israel-s-survival#commentsBarack ObamaMinneapolisCongressNationWorldGeographyPoliticsINNBenjamin NetanyahuIranIsraelWed, 15 Apr 2015 15:38:03 +0000Eric Black91815 at http://www.minnpost.comHillary Clinton’s announcement video and why I hated ithttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/hillary-clinton-s-announcement-video-and-why-i-hated-it
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N708P-A45D0?rel=0" width="640"></iframe></p><p dir="ltr">As you may have heard, Hillary Clinton is running for president and she “announced” this already long-known fact Sunday with the release of a two-minute <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uY7gLZDmn4&amp;feature=youtu.be">online video</a> in which the candidate herself isn’t seen or heard until the 1:30 mark.</p><p dir="ltr">Personally, I hated the video. Too highly produced, too phony, too little of the candidate and almost zero of the candidate standing for anything. “When families are strong, America is strong.” “Everyday Americans need a champion and I want to be that champion so you can do more than just get by, you can get ahead and stay ahead.” “So I’m hitting the road to earn your vote.”</p><div class="float-left"><div class="minnpost-ads-ad minnpost-ads-ad-Middle "><script type="text/javascript">OAS_AD("Middle");</script></div></div><p dir="ltr">The closest she comes in her pitifully few “remarks” is: “Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times. But the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top.” Eventually, she will presumably make some suggestions for laws and policies that will change the way the deck is stacked.</p><p dir="ltr">The first minute and a half is a collage of ordinary people of all genders, races, ages and affectional preferences saying sweet “real people” things and doing their best to reek of ordinariness. (I should mention that the inclusion of gay couple getting married is perhaps the other closest thing in the video to associating Clinton with a policy position.)</p><p dir="ltr">OK, she’s now officially in. I’m ready for something a bit more substantive.</p><p dir="ltr">P.S. New Yorker-based satirist Andy Borowitz "reports" that "Hillary Clinton has followed up the official announcement of her candidacy with a new campaign ad featuring nothing but kittens."</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/hillary-clinton-s-announcement-video-and-why-i-hated-it#commentsNationGeographyPoliticsINNelection 2016Hillary ClintonMon, 13 Apr 2015 14:21:24 +0000Eric Black91776 at http://www.minnpost.comBarney Frank on why white men don’t vote for Democratshttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/barney-frank-why-white-men-don-t-vote-democrats
<p dir="ltr">Barney Frank’s new book, which he promoted Thursday night before a packed auditorium at the University of Minnesota, is titled “Frank,” which is not only his last name but one of the author’s leading characteristics. Frank (the person not the book) retired from Congress in 2013 after 16 terms in the U.S. House representing a suburban Boston district. The presentation was funny and frank (small “f”) with no overarching point, so I’ll just pick out some of the high points.</p><p dir="ltr">Frank, the first sitting member of Congress to voluntarily come out as gay, said that prejudice against gays is “on its last legs,” as evidenced by the disasters recently inflicted on politicians in Indiana and Arkansas who tried to play the anti-gay card in the recent brouhaha over so-called religious freedom protection bills.</p><p dir="ltr">Those recent cases reminded Frank of the old analysis point that the only way Republicans, with their royalist economic policies, could be competitive with the national electorate was by appealing to social issues — God, guns and gays, as the saying goes. In fact, he said, among white men, the only subgroups among which Democrats win a majority of the vote are gays and Jews. But Frank rejects that old “three Gs” analysis point (except on the guns part, he said) and offered an unexpected analysis.</p><p dir="ltr">White working-class males have been losing ground economically since the end of the post-World War II boom. This is at least partly result of the domination of the government — and especially the Republican Party — by the wealthy. But, Frank believes, this white, male, blue-collar population blames the Democrats for the decline in their fortunes because Democrats are seen as the “party of government,” and those workers blame the party of government for not figuring out some way to help end their long slide from prosperity.</p><p dir="ltr">If you think the government isn’t helping you, it makes a certain rough sense to blame the “party of government” for your troubles, Frank suggested. But in reality, the Dems have seldom really controlled all branches of the government in recent decades. Frank believes that these blue-collar males blame the Democrats for a great many sins committed by the Republicans. For example, he said, there is a lot of (understandable) blue-collar anger over the big bailouts to Wall Street firms during the crash of 2007-08, and polls suggest that this anger is pointed at Democrats when in fact, Frank said, all of the big bailouts were proposed and initiated by President George W. Bush and his administration.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Cutting government spending</h4><p dir="ltr">Frank closed his opening remarks with two big ideas for cutting government spending. He believes it would be easy to cut $100 billion a year from military spending without hurting the national defense at all, since much of that spending is left over from World War II and Cold War thinking when the threats (Hitler and the Soviet Union) were completely different from today’s chief threat (terrorism).</p><p dir="ltr">“I wish you could fight terrorists with nuclear submarines,” Frank said, “because we have a lot of them and they have none of them.” The military spends billions on programs that have little relevance to today’s threats, he said.</p><p dir="ltr">His second big idea for government savings would be to stop spending billions every year to catch, prosecute and incarcerate people for using recreational drugs. Drug use is bad for you but is in no way a threat to the public commensurate with the government money spent combatting it, he said.</p><p dir="ltr">After his opening remarks, Frank took questions from U of M political scientist Larry Jacobs and from the audience. A few of those highlights:</p><h4 dir="ltr">Financial reform</h4><p dir="ltr">Frank was the chief House author of the eponymous Dodd-Frank law that dealt with the aftermath of the 2007-8 crash. Jacobs gave him an opportunity to respond to various criticisms of the law, an argument that will go on for a long time. But for Frank, the key to understanding the cause of the crisis was the practice that swept through Wall Street of bundling and securitizing home mortgages, which enabled banks to issue mortgages without having to care much about whether the mortgagees could afford the loan (since the issuing bank would unload the loan soon after it was issued).</p><p dir="ltr">Frank responded to critics who say his reform law was too soft on the banks. He said the law had specific provisions that would end the “too big to fail” system and would put out of business firms that engaged in future reckless conduct. He ended with a complicated, humorous shot at Sarah Palin for this criticism that managed to bring the Affordable Care Act into the discussion as well.</p><p dir="ltr">He said: &nbsp;“Sarah Palin was half right when she said we have death panels. We did have death panels — not for old people but for banks. But for Sarah Palin to be half right is better than her average.”</p><h4 dir="ltr">Death of compromise</h4><p dir="ltr">Frank referred several times during the evening to the demise of the two parties ability to compromise to get things done and linked it to the change in the TV news environment that enables people on the left and especially on the right to watch news that reinforces all their existing beliefs and gives them the impression that the whole world (except for a few crazy radicals on the other side) agrees with them.</p><p dir="ltr">If you think everyone agrees with you, Frank said, you can’t understand why you should have to compromise.</p><p dir="ltr">Jacobs asked him about some liberals who criticize him for being too willing to compromise with Republicans. His own attitude, Frank said, is that “being an adult means you have to recognize that you share the world with a whole lot of other people” and you can’t get exactly what you want all the time.</p><p dir="ltr">Frank said his approach to compromise is captured by an old <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henny_Youngman">Henny Youngman</a> joke. Youngman said that when people asked him “how’s your wife?” he would reply: “Compared to what?” In judging a potential compromise, he said, the key question is not is it perfect but is it better than the status quo.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren</h4><p dir="ltr">Frank supports Hillary Clinton for president. Jacobs asked about those who think Clinton is too moderate, too cozy with Wall Street — especially compared to the liberal firebrand Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Frank replied with a rhetorical question: “On what issues do they differ?” He said Clinton’s position on pretty much every domestic issue is acceptably liberal and pretty much the same as Warren’s.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Stakes of 2016</h4><p>“The health care bill, climate change, financial reform, whether or not there’s any reversal of the Supreme Court decision that puts money all over the system, abortion, will all be decided by the 2016 elections, presidential and other. This is a very consequential time,” Frank said.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/barney-frank-why-white-men-don-t-vote-democrats#commentsMinneapolisCongressNationWorldGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNBarney Frankelection 2016Elizabeth WarrenGeorge W. BushHillary ClintonLarry JacobsSarah PalinFri, 10 Apr 2015 15:24:55 +0000Eric Black91761 at http://www.minnpost.comAnother possible Democratic presidential candidate: Lincoln Chafeehttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/another-possible-democratic-presidential-candidate-lincoln-chafee
<p dir="ltr">A new and relatively unexpected politician has, in an admirably straightforward way, offered himself as a challenger for the Democratic nomination for president. He's Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, whose complicated political history includes time as a Republican, an independent and now as a Democrat and also includes service as a mayor, a governor and U.S. senator.</p><p dir="ltr">Surely someone will challenge Hillary Clinton's march to the coronation, and whoever it is will start out as a deep underdog. Sen. Bernie Sanders has been saying for months that he would like to figure out a way, but he hasn't figured it out and he is not even a Democrat. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has convinced at least me that she won't be a candidate this cycle. Former Sen. Jim Webb is in the mix, recently criticized and is<a href="http://wcfcourier.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/jim-webb-heads-to-waterloo-on-saturday/article_ca71e14f-db73-513a-89e2-7473dbcac7c5.html"> headed for Iowa this weekend</a> after offering<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/jim-webb-critiques-clinton-era-foreign-policy-116796.html"> a critique of the foreign policy of both Ms. Clinton and her husband</a> as lacking "strategic direction." Much recent speculation has centered around former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley,<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/jim-webb-critiques-clinton-era-foreign-policy-116796.html"> who doesn't deny he'd like to do it</a>.</p><p dir="ltr">Now comes Chafee. His entry into the speculation comes via a 97-second video just released (and embedded in<a href="http://ripr.org/post/lincoln-chafee-considers-run-2016-democratic-presidential-nomination#.VSaDtu4ZVow.twitter"> this clip from Rhode Island Public Radio</a>) which consists entirely of him talking to the camera (no great videographic brainwashing here) and begins with this not-terribly-handsome-or-charismatic fellow announcing: "I'm Lincoln Chafee and I'm a Democrat considering running for president of the United States."</p><p dir="ltr">Before long, he makes clear that he will call out the Republicans for their record ("when the Republicans were last in power, they left the economy in shambles") and won't be running away from Obamaism, stating: "Over the last six years, President Obama has led admirably. He has revived the economy..."</p><h4 dir="ltr">Low-production video</h4><p dir="ltr">To tell you the truth, as one who is absolutely starved for straightforwardness and what the punditocracy has taken to calling "authenticity," my favorite things about the video are its low production values and Chafee's lack of acting skills. He is neither handsome nor smooth. His sing-songy delivery (although there is, impressively, no music in the video) and the way his head wobbles as he delivers the tune were sure signs that he hasn't spent his recent retirement (and it should be mentioned that he didn't seek another term as governor because his poll ratings were below the survivable level) studying with a voice or acting coach.</p><p dir="ltr">He doesn't mention former Secretary of State Clinton and he will obviously have to do some work to explain why Democrats should put him on the ticket instead of her.</p><p dir="ltr">Two weeks ago, apparently flying below the media radar, Chafee posted<a href="https://vimeo.com/123087496"> a seven-minute video, labeled a "mini-documentary,"</a> in which he pointed to President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq as the source of much of the recent instability in the Middle East and managed to mention that he had voted against the resolution to authorize the war (unlike Clinton who voted "aye," but Chafee doesn't mention that). The Iraq invasion, he says, "was based on falsehoods and was one of the worst decisions in United States history."</p><h4 dir="ltr">‘Where we should go’</h4><p dir="ltr">The rest of that video consists of three clips that Chafee says "help us understand where we've been and where we should go."</p><p dir="ltr">The first clip is President Dwight Eisenhower's farewell address (written by a former president of the University of Minnesota, by the way) in which Ike warned about the growing power of the "military-industrial complex."</p><p dir="ltr">The second clip is an interview with Dick Cheney in 1994, after he had served as defense secretary during the first Gulf War, the one to drive the Iraqi military out of Kuwait. Cheney is asked whether the victorious U.S. troops should have marched on to Baghdad and gotten rid of Saddam Hussein. Cheney says no, that would have turned into a U.S.-only operation that would have left an ungovernable situation with the United States stuck to pick up the pieces without Arab allies.</p><p>The third clip, by far the least compelling, shows Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi addressing a joint session of Congress, in the period shortly before the 9/11 attacks, talking about the moment of peace among former enemies that then existed. At the end, Chafee again mentions that he is exploring a presidential bid in hopes of steering U.S. policy back to seeking an age of peace for our children.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/another-possible-democratic-presidential-candidate-lincoln-chafee#commentsBarack ObamaNationGeographyPoliticsINNDick CheneyGeorge W. BushHillary ClintonLincoln ChafeeThu, 09 Apr 2015 17:42:17 +0000Eric Black91741 at http://www.minnpost.comCruz-linked Super PACs gush money at a record pacehttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/cruz-linked-super-pacs-gush-money-record-pace
<p dir="ltr">A brief follow-up to<a href="http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/nothing-s-left-post-watergate-campaign-finance-reforms"> Tuesday's piece</a> suggesting that there are no longer any meaningful restrictions on money in politics:</p><p dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-04-08/exclusive-new-ted-cruz-super-pacs-take-in-record-haul">Bloomberg news reports</a> that Super PACs created just this week (to celebrate the official entry of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, into the presidential race) will have $31 million in the bank by Friday. Personally, I have trouble keeping keeping track of how large a money-in-politics number has to be to be impressive, but the Bloombergers write:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">Although super-PACs have radically changed the pace at which committees backing presidential candidates can raise money, the Cruz haul is remarkable. There are no known cases in which an operation backing a White House hopeful has collected this much money in less than a week.</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">Presumably many of the pro-Cruz millionaires will take advantage of the various loopholes available so that their identities need never be disclosed, so that the TV viewers in early primary and caucus states need never be told who is responsible for the highly illuminating "messaging" that will soon be educating them via their television screens.</p><p dir="ltr">And, to briefly respond to a couple of commenters in the thread under the previous piece who suggested that it only bothers me when Republicans benefit from the all-loophole regulatory regimen: Yes, Hillary Clinton will officially enter the race with with unimaginably vast resources at her disposal and the disposal of her allied (but not officially coordinated) PACs. The whole system, as evolved, is a blot on our democracy.</p><p>Thank you, U.S. Supreme Court for safeguarding our freedom of expression in this manner and making it impossible for Congress, even if it could summon the will to put an end to it, to put an end to it.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/cruz-linked-super-pacs-gush-money-record-pace#commentsCampaign FinanceGeographyPoliticsINNelection 2016Hillary ClintonTed CruzWed, 08 Apr 2015 15:08:37 +0000Eric Black91716 at http://www.minnpost.comA question for Scott Walker about Iran: What’s your alternative?http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/question-scott-walker-about-iran-what-s-your-alternative
<p dir="ltr">It’s probably too soon to take Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker seriously as a possible next president. He looks strong in the latest polls. And he’s being touted as a likely leader in the race to be the last representative of the Republican hard right standing at the end of the nominating fight against the representative of the Republican business establishment, possibly Jeb Bush.</p><p dir="ltr">Walker may end up as exactly that. And he may be the nominee and the next president. It’s just too soon to take that possibility too seriously, still nine months before the Iowa caucuses, when a sensible country wouldn’t be breathlessly discussing such things.</p><p dir="ltr">If you recall 2012, we went through four or five flavor-of-the-month Republican poll leaders (Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Rick Perry, for example), none of whom survived even to the New Hampshire primary as serious contenders.</p><p dir="ltr">But it’s not too soon to notice what Walker is saying, other than <a href="http://onpolitics.usatoday.com/2015/01/26/scott-walker-president-iowa-freedom-summit/">his fabulous reference to shopping at Kohl’s</a>, because it’s always a good idea to expect and demand substance from those auditioning for and aspiring to be president.</p><p dir="ltr">A few days ago, Walker was on the Hugh Hewitt radio show. <a href="http://www.hughhewitt.com/governor-scott-walker-talks-foreign-policy/">(Transcript here</a>.) &nbsp;Near the top of the show, Hewitt asked about the tentative framework deal on nuclear technology and inspections between Iran and the P5-plus one countries:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr"><strong>Hewitt:</strong> Would you reject that deal if you took the Oval Office?</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>Walker:</strong> Absolutely, on Day One. I mean, to me, it is, the concept of a nuclear Iran is not only problematic for Iran, and certainly for Israel, but it opens the doors. I mean, the Saudis are next. You’re going to have plenty of others in the region. People forget that even amongst the Islamic world, there is no love lost between the Saudis and the Iranians. And so they’re going to want to have a nuclear weapon if the Iranians have a nuclear weapon. This is something that just escalates right before our eyes. And the fact that this administration began these discussions essentially conceding that they’re going to allow enrichment to go forward with the Iranians just shows you that they don’t have the same level of concern that I think I and Senator [Marco] Rubio and many others out there have, that a nuclear Iran is a problem for the entire world, not just for Israel.</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">Set aside for moment whether you agree that the deal is as bad as Walker says it is, and even the technical, legal, constitutional questions about whether President Walker would have the authority on Day One to repudiate the deal.</p><p dir="ltr">Hewitt, whom I know to be a smart guy and, on some matters, a substantive guy, did not ask a single follow-up question. Would you need to coordinate such a reversal with the other five signatories, which include several of America’s best and longest-standing allies (Britain, France, Germany) plus the other two strongest military powers in the world (Russia, China)?</p><h4 dir="ltr">Some questions</h4><p dir="ltr">And he didn’t ask Walker:</p><p dir="ltr">After you have insulted all of the other signatories, whose help you are presumably going to need to stitch together the new Walker plan for dealing with the threat that you believe Iran poses, what will your new policy be? Are you going to ask those countries, whom you have just insulted, to join you in a restoration of the full economic sanctions and try to go back to negotiations with Iran? Do you have any reason to believe the rest of the P-5 and China will go along with that after you have unilaterally rejected the deal that they signed? Are you going to invade Iran and install a government friendlier to the United States and Israel? Are you going to just bomb the Iranian nuclear development sites and see what happens afterward? Are you going to ask the Israelis to do that for you?</p><p dir="ltr">Maybe there are some other options for Day Two. What are they and which of them would newly inaugurated President Walker pursue?</p><p dir="ltr">I’m not saying there are no other options. And I’m not saying Walker has no clue what they are. But his plan for Day One certainly screams for those questions to be asked, and some version of them should be asked of everyone currently speaking against the framework agreement. What’s your alternative?</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/question-scott-walker-about-iran-what-s-your-alternative#commentsBarack ObamaNationWorldGeographyPoliticsINNelection 2016IranScott WalkerTue, 07 Apr 2015 15:30:49 +0000Eric Black91699 at http://www.minnpost.comNothing’s left of the post-Watergate campaign-finance reformshttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/nothing-s-left-post-watergate-campaign-finance-reforms
<div class="image float-right"><img class="imagecache-article_detail" src="/sites/default/files/imagecache/article_detail/GaryHart2009_225.jpg" alt="Gary Hart" title="Gary Hart" /><div class="credit">REUTERS/Alexander Natruskin</div><div class="caption">Gary Hart</div></div><p dir="ltr">Gary Hart<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/gary-hart-hillary-clinton-2016-billion-dollar-campaign-116673.html?hp=l1_3"> tells Politico he is worried</a> that money is overwhelming politics and that the prospect of a Clinton-Bush race in 2016 suggests a new "dynastic" nature to American politics.</p><p dir="ltr">Here's the money quote (pun intended) from Hart: “If you’ve got to have a billion dollars to run for president, how many people can do that? Only the Clintons and the Bushes and one or two others.”</p><p dir="ltr">No duh. But he's right and we need some of his patented "new ideas" in our politics, and especially new ideas about how to get the money race under control. Because the old ideas have all been declared unconstitutional.</p><p dir="ltr">The two fundamental ideas around which the entire post-Watergate campaign-finance regulatory scheme was built were limits on how much any one donor could give and disclosure of who is giving. An underemphasized story in last week's Washington Post seemed to say that there is nothing meaningful left of either idea.</p><p dir="ltr">The<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-secret-donors-could-play-a-big-role-boosting-jeb-bush/2015/03/31/05647310-d7cd-11e4-b3f2-607bd612aeac_story.html"> story by Ed O'Keefe and Matea Gold</a> was headlined "How a Bush-allied nonprofit could inject more secret money into ’16 race," but that strikes me as understated.</p><div class="float-left"><div class="minnpost-ads-ad minnpost-ads-ad-Middle "><script type="text/javascript">OAS_AD("Middle");</script></div></div><p dir="ltr">It was already true that individuals could give unlimited sums to help their favorite candidates get elected, as long as they didn't give it directly to the candidate's campaign. It was already true that the kinds of "Super PACs" to which they could donate unlimited sums could be even more valuable than money given directly to the candidates, because the Super PACs could spend the money on ads so scummy that that the candidate wouldn't want to be associated with them, and the candidate could say that he had nothing to do with them. But in order to make that gag work, the candidate's campaign and the Super PAC had to maintain some credible illusion of "non-coordination" of their activities.</p><p dir="ltr">But according to the Post piece, even that last inconvenience has been made to disappear by the latest wrinkle. From the story:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">Jeb Bush has given his tacit endorsement to a new group that can collect unlimited amounts of money in secret, part of a bold effort by his advisers to create a robust external political operation before he declares his expected White House bid.</p><p dir="ltr">The nonprofit group, Right to Rise Policy Solutions, was quietly established in Arkansas in February by a friend and former Bush staffer. The group shares the name of two political committees for which Bush has been aggressively raising money — blurring the line that is supposed to separate a campaign from independent groups.</p><p dir="ltr">While ideological nonprofits have become major players in national politics in recent years, this marks the first time one has been so embedded in the network of a prospective candidate.</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">What I get from this is that even the shred of credibility still attached to the pitiful notion of "non-coordination" now lays in tatters, assuming that a "shred" can lay in "tatters."</p><p dir="ltr">The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that any more burdensome regulation than this would be inconsistent with the First Amendment right of free expression.</p><p>If you missed it, I wrote<a href="http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/10/how-other-democracies-balance-limiting-political-ads-and-free-speech"> a piece last year as part of the "Electoral Dysfunction" series</a> documenting how other democracies — democracies like England, Canada and France that like to think that they value free speech too — have found that regulation of the intersection of money and speech is absolutely necessary to keep election campaigns from turning into auctions.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/nothing-s-left-post-watergate-campaign-finance-reforms#commentsNationGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNelection 2016Electoral DysfunctionHillary ClintonJeb BushWatergateMon, 06 Apr 2015 15:57:32 +0000Eric Black91681 at http://www.minnpost.comWorried about paying federal estate taxes? Don’t behttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/worried-about-paying-federal-estate-taxes-don-t-be
<p dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/01/republicans-have-a-new-plan-to-cut-taxes-for-the-top-2-percent/">Writing for the Washington Post's Wonkblog,</a> and seizing the occasion of a House Ways and Means Committee vote to eliminate the federal estate tax, Matt O'Brien shines a momentary light on the estate tax, and comes up with some numbers that took me by surprise.</p><p dir="ltr">Nominally, the inheritance tax takes 40 percent of very large estates as they pass to the next generation. Republicans have long criticized this as case of "double taxation" because presumably the parents (or grandparents or whomever) paid income taxes on this money when they made it, so their grandkids shouldn't have to pay again just because they inherited it.</p><p dir="ltr">The moral problem is a little hard for people without super-rich families to grasp fully. The heirs who inherit large estates aren't exactly magnets for the sympathy of ordinary folks. And, of course, the heirs and heiresses aren't being double-taxed, since they have never previously been taxed on these particular millions or billions. And the heirs are still making out reasonably well on their decision to be born into those particular families. But it's the principle of the thing. The money itself has already been taxed.</p><p dir="ltr">Anyway, Wonkblogger O'Brien says that the share of the population that gets hit with this tax is 0.2 percent of households, or two out every thousand. It doesn't kick in until after the children have received $10.86 million of tax-free inheritance.</p><p dir="ltr">Then the 40-percent bite is a fiction. Relying on<a href="http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&amp;id=5293"> research by the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities</a>, O'Brien writes that even after the tax-free $10 million has been passed on to the heirs, "creative accountants and big deductions can shield a lot of the rest from Uncle Sam." After all the tax shelters have been exhausted, the unfortunate heirs, on average, pay 16.6 percent of the value of their inheritance.</p><p dir="ltr">In other times and places, House Republicans are obsessed with reducing the federal deficit and debt. But, CBPP concludes: "The House Ways and Means Committee proposal to repeal the estate tax would reduce revenue by more than $250 billion over the next decade. The proposal before the committee includes no provisions to offset this cost. The revenue loss thus would increase the deficit and add to the nation’s debt."</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/worried-about-paying-federal-estate-taxes-don-t-be#commentsCongressNationGeographyPoliticsINNEstate taxFri, 03 Apr 2015 14:45:02 +0000Eric Black91656 at http://www.minnpost.comBorowitz satire: McCain concerned we won't get to bomb bomb bomb Iranhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/borowitz-satire-mccain-concerned-we-wont-get-bomb-bomb-bomb-iran
<p>New Yorker magazine-based satirist Andy Borowitz <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/peace-with-iran-could-limit-ability-to-bomb-it-warns-mccain?mbid=nl_Borowitz%20%2811%29&amp;cndid=17211755&amp;mbid=nl_Borowitz%20%2811%29&amp;CNDID=17211755&amp;spMailingID=7635569&amp;spUserID=MjUyNDM5MjQyMDES1&amp;spJobID=660213248&amp;spReportId=NjYwMjEzMjQ4S0">channels his inner John McCain and expresses horror</a> at the possibility that a deal between the U.S.-led coalition and Iran “could greatly limit our ability to bomb it.”</p><blockquote><p style="padding-left: 30px;">As for President Obama, McCain [in Borowitz' imagination] added, “Sometimes I think the President cares more about making the Iranians happy than about making the people who want to bomb the Iranians happy.”</p></blockquote><p>(The headline on this post, by the way, derives not from Borowitz but from a real instance in which McCain sang, presumably in jest, to the tune of the Beach Boys hit "Barbara Ann," <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-zoPgv_nYg">thus</a>.)</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/borowitz-satire-mccain-concerned-we-wont-get-bomb-bomb-bomb-iran#commentsBarack ObamaNationWorldGeographyPoliticsINNAndy BorowitzIranJohn McCainFri, 03 Apr 2015 13:08:44 +0000Eric Black91651 at http://www.minnpost.comWhy it's nearly impossible to sort out Mideast good guys and bad guyshttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/why-its-nearly-impossible-sort-out-mideast-good-guys-and-bad-guys
<p>Pretty much any effort to divide the Middle East into good guys and bad guys, democrats and tyrants, friends and foes to America will fail due to excessive complexity, shifting sands of interests and a great deal of b.s.-ing the public.</p><p>The neocon element of the Washington establishment, led most publicly by Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, always have a top candidate of a bad guy they’d like to overthrow, usually by bombing or invading that guy’s nation, unless it can be handled by a secret CIA coup. To my eyes, the track record of this approach, in terms of achieving the promised results, looks pretty bad.</p><p>We’re at a (probably not “the”) key moment in the U.S.-led effort to prevent, by peaceful, negotiated means, Iran from getting too close to developing nuclear weapons capability. It’s not going great and it may fail or drag on or, perhaps, something in between that buys more time.</p><p>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the U.S. neocons have long since concluded that there is no deal worth doing that can done. Many of them are less clear on what the alternative is to a deal, but it’s not that hard to figure out. Bomb. Invade. Overthrow or, as they prefer to euphemize it, “regime change.”</p><p>They don’t much talk about the fact that such a policy would fracture unity of the world’s biggest powers who have been working together on the deal. The end of that unity would also likely weaken the economic sanctions regime that is the main pressure keeping Iran at the bargaining table.</p><p>If they would be more clear about what their alternatives really are, they would have a much harder time finding a receptive audience in broader America.</p><p>Writing for the Monday New York Times, long-time foreign policy columnist Roger Cohen delivered <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/31/opinion/roger-cohen-iran-matters-most.html?ref=opinion&amp;_r=1">a smart, sober analysis,</a> which amounted to fairly strong endorsement of President Obama’s current approach. The four-word lede is this: “Do the Iran deal.”</p><p>His one-paragraph put-down of the neocon approach goes like this:</p><blockquote><p style="padding-left: 30px;">“American or Israeli bombs on Persia (or both) would have all sorts of ghastly consequences, but the fundamental argument against such folly is that they would cause no more than a hiccup in Iran’s nuclear program before spurring it to renewed and unmonitored intensity. This would be war without purpose, or war on false pretenses. We’ve seen enough of that.”</p></blockquote><p>Cohen (and, one assumes, Obama) hope that buying&nbsp;10 years or so will keep open the possibility of a deep change in Iran’s attitude and conduct. Here’s the section of his piece:</p><blockquote><p class="story-body-text" style="padding-left: 30px;">“Iran is a hopeful and youthful society. Nurture the hope. Don’t imprison it. A deal lasting 10 years would condemn Iran and America to a working relationship over that period. I use the word 'condemn' advisedly. It would not be pretty. In fact it would be ugly. There would be plenty of disagreements.</p><p class="story-body-text" style="padding-left: 30px;" itemprop="articleBody" data-total-count="2211" data-para-count="605">"But jaw-jaw is better than war-war. Much can be achieved with nations that have fundamental ideological differences with the United States; look at the history of Chinese-American relations since they resumed in the 1970’s. During the next decade the Islamic Republic is likely to go through a leadership change. Its society is aspirational and Westward-looking. ‘Death to America’ has become a tired refrain. What these elements will produce in terms of change is unpredictable, but the chance of positive developments is enhanced by contact and diminished by punitive estrangement of Tehran.</p><p class="story-body-text" style="padding-left: 30px;" itemprop="articleBody" data-total-count="2526" data-para-count="315">"Would it be preferable that Iran not have the nuclear capacity it has acquired? Sure. Can there be absolute guarantees a deal would be honored? No. But diplomacy deals with the real world. The toughest, most important diplomacy is conducted with enemies. Opponents of an accord have offered no serious alternatives."</p></blockquote><p>I’ll stop quoting him, but you have his argument now, and more importantly, his tone, which is calm, hopeful and mature in that it doesn’t endorse the kind of “magic bullet” properties that the regime-changers do. (Did I mention that <a href="http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2009/06/obama-michael-medved-and-cia-overthrow-democracy-iran">the U.S. already "regime changed" Iran, overthrowing the only really democratic government it ever had</a>?)</p><p>Another much more radical, lefty analysis – not just about the Iran stuff but about the overall nature of the Mideast problem and U.S. policy there –&nbsp; was published Tuesday by Robert Parry for his site, Consortium News. It notes that the Mideast is hopelessly complex but also notes that there are forces and voices in the U.S. mainstream discussion that do not want us to know or understand key facts.</p><p>One of those key facts, Parry believes, is that:</p><blockquote><p style="padding-left: 30px;">“Israel is now allied with Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Persian Gulf states, which are, in turn, supporting Sunni militants in Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, this Israel-Saudi bloc sustains Al-Qaeda and, to a somewhat lesser&nbsp;degree, the Islamic State.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"The U.S. news media is loath to note these strange Israeli bedfellows, but there’s a twisted logic to the Israeli-Saudi connection. Both Israel and the Saudi bloc have identified Shiite-ruled Iran as their chief regional adversary and thus are supporting proxy wars against perceived Iranian allies in Syria and now Yemen. The Syrian government and the Houthi rebels in Yemen are led by adherents to offshoots of Shiite Islam, so they are the ‘enemy.’”</p></blockquote><p>If true, there is certainly some strange bedfellowism here. Israel (despite the obvious problems of the subject Palestinian population) is as close as you get to a real democracy in the Mideast. Saudi Arabia is the opposite. They hold no meaningful elections and <a href="http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/us-ally-flogs-bloggers">they flog bloggers there</a>. Women cannot legally drive. And Saudi Arabia has historically been the leader of the Arab rejectionist bloc, meaning they rejected Israel’s right to exist, although in recent yeafrs they have played a more constructive role in promoting Israeli-Palestinian peace.</p><p>But this must be said. Friendship and alliance with both Israel and Saudi Arabia have been the key building blocs of U.S. Mideast policy for decades.</p><p>Parry essentially argues that through that three-way strategic relationship, the United States is part of a club that currently sides with elements of Al Qaida and the Islamic State group.</p><p>Read the full Parry argument yourself. It’s titled <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2015/03/30/deciphering-the-mideast-chaos/">“Deciphering the Mideast Chaos.”</a></p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/04/why-its-nearly-impossible-sort-out-mideast-good-guys-and-bad-guys#commentsArmed ForcesBarack ObamaMediaNationBusinessWorldGeographyPoliticsINNBenjamin NetanyahuWed, 01 Apr 2015 15:49:54 +0000Eric Black91617 at http://www.minnpost.comHow a most-admired-woman poll connects to the Clinton email dustuphttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/03/how-most-admired-woman-poll-connects-clinton-email-dustup
<p dir="ltr"><a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/3/hold-the-alarmism-on-hillary.html">Writing for Al Jazeera America, political journalist Jill Lawrence opines</a> that the imbroglio over Hillary Clinton’s email practices will blow over, and that Clinton remains a “powerhouse contender.”</p><p dir="ltr">I suspect she’s right on both scores, although certain people will take every imaginable measure to keep the email story alive and then follow it with something equally momentous, if necessary, to keep the former first lady, senator, secretary of state and Wellesley College student commencement speaker on the defensive. &nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">But Lawrence’s evidence struck me as pretty sketchy. One of the key data bits went like this:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“Clinton has been the country’s <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/1678/most-admired-man-woman.aspx">most admired woman</a> for 19 of the last 22 years — &nbsp;a run interrupted only by Mother Teresa in 1995 and 1996 and Laura Bush in 2001.”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">Well, Mother Teresa died in 1997 or she probably would have kept on cranking out those “most admireds.” And what would that have told us about Clinton’s chances to be president?</p><p dir="ltr">But what’s really great about the most-admired-woman achievement is that when Gallup asks what woman you most admire, it doesn’t supply any names to the respondents so the answers are all over the place. Clinton won it last year with 12 percent of responses, which actually placed her well behind “no opinion” with 26 percent.</p><p dir="ltr">If you’re curious, the most-admired runners-up last year (among women who were actually named by the respondents) were Oprah Winfrey and Malala Yousafzai.</p><p dir="ltr">By the way, of the 64 winners in the history of the most-admired-woman poll, 51 were sitting or former first ladies.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/03/how-most-admired-woman-poll-connects-clinton-email-dustup#commentsNationGeographyPoliticsINNelection 2016Gallup PollHillary ClintonFri, 20 Mar 2015 13:48:16 +0000Eric Black91458 at http://www.minnpost.comIs Netanyahu’s hard line from the heart or is it political?http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/03/netanyahu-s-hard-line-heart-or-it-political
<p dir="ltr">Eight thoughts (with links) after the Israeli election:</p><p dir="ltr">1. Read Mark <a href="http://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2015/03/high-cost-netanyahus-victory">Porubcansky’s overview, for MinnPost</a>, of the election result. The nut graph:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“Rather than signifying the ‘great victory’ [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] declared via Twitter after the polls closed Tuesday, however, the election is unlikely to make Israel any easier to govern. If anything, the tenor of his campaign will make differences with the Obama administration over Iran’s nuclear program and Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians even worse. Relations with Israel’s sizable Arab minority will be both trickier and more significant.”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">2. Tom Friedman’s take, (from <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/opinion/go-ahead-ruin-my-day.html?_r=1">his column in this morning New York Times</a>):</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“It is hard to know what is more depressing: that Netanyahu went for the gutter in the last few days in order to salvage his campaign — renouncing his own commitment to a two-state solution with the Palestinians and race-baiting Israeli Jews to get out and vote because, he said, too many Israeli Arabs were going to the polls — &nbsp;or the fact that this seemed to work.</p><p dir="ltr">“To be sure, Netanyahu could reverse himself tomorrow. As the Yediot Ahronot columnist Nahum Barnea wrote: Netanyahu’s promises are like something ‘written on ice on a very hot day.’ But the fact is a good half of Israel identifies with the paranoid, everyone-is-against-us, and religious-nationalist tropes Netanyahu deployed in this campaign. That, along with the fact that some 350,000 settlers are now living in the West Bank, makes it hard to see how a viable two-state solution is possible anymore no matter who would have won.”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">3. Turnout of eligible Israeli voters in yesterday’s election: 71.8 percent.</p><p dir="ltr">Turnout of U.S. voters in 2014 election: 36.3 percent.</p><p dir="ltr">I know. You’re saying that 2014 was only a midterm election, an argument I hate because the entire U.S. House is on the ballot in midterms plus one-third of the U.S. Senate, but OK, let’s go to the last presidential election year.</p><p dir="ltr">U.S. turnout in 2012: 54.0 percent.</p><p dir="ltr">4. The tight and bipartisan U.S.-Israeli friendship doesn’t go back as far a lot of us think when we reflexively cite Harry Truman’s quick recognition of Israel’s independence in 1948. The modern alliance and the big annual aid packages really date from the 1967 war. But it grew more and more solid and meaningful for decades. Now it is more partisan and more frail than usual. President Obama and Netanyahu neither like nor trust each other and Netanyahu’s recent visit to speak to Congress was a new irritant. There is some possibility from here that the alliance will recede further or become more and a more divided along party lines within the United States.</p><p dir="ltr">5. Most American Jews are Democrats and it appears that younger American Jews are more willing than their parents to be critical of Israel, especially when it is under right-wing leadership and if the leadership is stonewalling the so-called “peace process.” J Street, an organization dominated by young American Jews which calls itself “pro-Israel and pro-peace,” put out a statement (by J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami) that began:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“Benjamin Netanyahu’s victory is a deep disappointment to all who hoped that Israel might choose a new direction for the country in yesterday’s election.</p><p dir="ltr">“The Prime Minister’s renunciation of the two-state solution and resort to a campaign grounded in fear and tinged with racism successfully moved 150,000 votes from other right-wing parties into the Likud column in the campaign’s final days. But we fear that the cost to Israel in the long-run will be steep in terms of support here in the United States and internationally.”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">The <a href="http://act.jstreet.org/mailings/view/3780?akid=3780.113809.bc_Cbt">full J Street statement is here</a>.</p><p dir="ltr">6. Israel has a vibrant free press, which stands out in the generally undemocratic and authoritarian region in which it is situated. Here are the headlines with links to the lineup of op-ed pieces in today’s edition of the left-Labor-leaning newspaper Ha’aretz:</p><p dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel-election-2015/.premium-1.647578">Netanyahu won, but Israel was brought to its knees</a> (by Ari Shavit).</p><p dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.647555">Netanyahu deserves the Israeli people, and they deserve him</a> (by Gideon Levy). &nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-special-place-in-hell/.premium-1.647564">As an Israeli, I am ashamed that my prime minister is a racist</a> (by Bradley Burston). &nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.647581">Netanyahu won, but he lost his image as national leader</a> (by Uri Misgav). &nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">7. Does Netanyahu’s hard line on the issue of a two-state solution come from the heart or is it political? Personally, I was more convinced that Netanyahu was faking about wanting to reach a two-state deal. I can’t read his heart but you might note that Netanyahu’s father, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzion_Netanyahu">Benzion Netanyahu</a>, to whom the son was devoted, was a substantial figure in the hard-line right “revisionist” movement within Zionism. The revisionists believed in a “greater Israel,” basically including all of the territory now comprising Israel, the West Bank and Gaza and, in various times and cases, Jordan as well. Benzion Netanyahu opposed the 1948 United Nations actions that created the modern state of Israel, basically because it didn’t give Israel enough territory. It is, of course, unfair to assign the father’s politics to the son. There have always been those who speculated that Benjamin could never trade land for peace with the Arabs as long as his father was alive. Benzion died in 2012 at age 102.</p><p dir="ltr">8. Of course, it was Menachem Begin, the leader of the revisionist Zionists and man implicated in acts of terror against Arabs, who signed the Camp David peace accord ending the permanent state of war between Egypt and Israel. It was Ariel Sharon, the patron of the movement to build settlements in the occupied territories, who as prime minister pulled all the settlements out of Gaza. Netanyahu is a mere 65 and looks to be fit for a while yet. He could surprise us.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/03/netanyahu-s-hard-line-heart-or-it-political#commentsBarack ObamaMediaNationBusinessWorldGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNBenjamin NetanyahuIsraelWed, 18 Mar 2015 21:26:09 +0000Eric Black91454 at http://www.minnpost.comHow a challenge by Martin O'Malley could move Hillary Clinton to the lefthttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/03/how-challenge-martin-omalley-could-move-hillary-clinton-left
<div class="image" style="margin-bottom: 20px;"><img class="imagecache-article_detail" src="/sites/default/files/imagecache/article_detail/MartinOMalley640.jpg" alt="Martin O'Malley" title="Martin O'Malley's presidential ambitions have been long known to those who pay attention to him, but that's not such a large group." /><div class="credit"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mdfriendofhillary/5116909665" target="_blank">Creative Commons/Edward Kimmel</a></div><div class="caption">Martin O'Malley's presidential ambitions have been long known to those who pay attention to him, but that's not such a large group.</div></div><p dir="ltr">Hillary Clinton holds a historically rare commanding position for a non-incumbent in a race for an open presidential nomination. Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum and it seems inevitable that someone will challenge her and, given the state of play, the challenge will almost certainly come from her left and will paint her as too moderate and especially too cozy with Wall Street.</p><p dir="ltr">I choose to believe Sen. Elizabeth Warren's many statements that it won't be her. Sen. Bernie Sanders (who actually isn't even a Democrat) would like to figure out a way he could do it. Former Sen. Jim Webb is publicly talking about running, although he might not present a left alternative to Clinton.</p><p dir="ltr">In<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/martin-omalley-sounds-like-hes-running/2015/03/16/81bc4922-c9c4-11e4-b2a1-bed1aaea2816_story.html"> her Washington Post column Monday,</a> Katrina Vanden Heuvel (who is also editor of The Nation magazine) writes that former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley "is almost certainly running for president. And he’s determined to make his voice heard despite some pundits dismissing his ability to mount a ‘credible’ challenge to Clinton for the party’s nomination."</p><p dir="ltr">Although he is far from a household name nationally, O'Malley won two races for mayor of Baltimore and two for governor of Maryland. His presidential ambitions have been long known to those who pay attention to him, but that's not such a large group. When a poll showed him attracting 11 percent in a race against Clinton, O'Malley cracked: "Who did this poll, my mom?"</p><p dir="ltr">Vanden Heuvel is clearly among those who wants to see Clinton challenged from the left. She described O'Malley as developing "a progressive, populist message." She wrote:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">"Specifically, he has called for reinstating Glass-Steagall banking regulations, hiking the capital gains tax, increasing the minimum wage, raising the threshold for overtime pay and strengthening collective bargaining rights. And while he is far more comfortable discussing his policies than his potential opponents, O’Malley took a perceived shot at Clinton in South Carolina when he declared,<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/02/28/omalley-serves-notice-to-wall-street-ahead-of-possible-presidential-bid/"> ‘Triangulation is not a strategy that will move America forward.’”</a></p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">Seems likely to me that Vanden Heuvel hopes a challenge from the left will pull Clinton in that direction and make commitments to progressive issue positions that she will take into the White House. There is a contrary and conventional line of analysis that believes that the sooner a presidential candidate can move to the center and craft a message appealing to swing voters, the more likely that candidate is to win. If Clinton can occupy a position close to the center of the political spectrum while Republican candidates are trying to fire up the party base, her chances of winning in November go up.</p><p dir="ltr">I understand that analysis, and it may be correct. It is certainly traditional thinking. But I was struck by some remarks<a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/03/dan-pfeiffer-exit-interview.html"> made by Dan Pfeiffer to Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine</a> on the occasion of Pfeiffer's departure from the White House. Pfeiffer left with the title of "senior adviser" to Obama and had been on the team since early in Obama's first presidential campaign. He took on a version of the conventional wisdom about needing to move to the center to find success. From the Chait piece:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">"The original premise of Obama’s first presidential campaign was that he could reason with Republicans — or else, by staking out obviously reasonable stances, force them to moderate or be exposed as extreme and unyielding. It took years for the White House to conclude that this was false, and that, in Pfeiffer’s words, ‘what drives 90 percent of stuff is not the small tactical decisions or the personal relationships but the big, macro political incentives.’”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">Pfeiffer says that the Obamians gradually learned that taking middlish positions to court moderate Republican support doesn't work. These two paragraphs summarize the alternative view to which Pfeiffer now subscribes:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">"Many political journalists imagine that the basic tension for the White House lies between Obama’s liberal base and appealing to Americans at the center, who will be crucial for tipping elections.</p><p dir="ltr">“Pfeiffer believes the dynamic is, in fact, the opposite: 'The incentive structure moves from going after the diminishing middle to motivating the base.' Ever since Republicans took control of the House four years ago, attempts to court Republicans have mostly failed while simultaneously dividing Democratic voters. Obama’s most politically successful maneuvers, by contrast, have all been unilateral and liberal. 'Whenever we contemplate bold progressive action,' Pfeiffer said, 'whether that’s the president’s endorsement of marriage equality, or coming out strong on power-plant rules to reduce current pollution, on immigration, on net neutrality, you get a lot of hemming and hawing in advance about what this is going to mean: Is this going to alienate people? Is this going to hurt the president’s approval ratings? What will this mean in red states? And yet this hesitation has always proved overblown: There’s never been a time when we’ve taken progressive action and regretted it.'"</p></blockquote><p>Bear in mind that Pfeiffer seems to be explicitly talking about governing, not campaigning. But Obama did, after all, upset the favorite in 2008 — namely Hillary Clinton — by exciting the Democrats' liberal base and generating higher turnout among groups that skew ideologically left but often don't turn out to vote.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/03/how-challenge-martin-omalley-could-move-hillary-clinton-left#commentsBarack ObamaMediaNationBusinessGeographyPoliticsINNelection 2016Hillary ClintonMartin O'MalleyTue, 17 Mar 2015 13:43:14 +0000Eric Black91408 at http://www.minnpost.comTim Pawlenty makes pleasant — even sweet — public appearancehttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/03/tim-pawlenty-makes-pleasant-even-sweet-public-appearance
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="385" scrolling="no" src="http://cdn.livestream.com/embed/theuptake?layout=4&amp;clip=pla_a038c5b0-8579-4eea-adf7-e491ec9d7de3&amp;color=0xe7e7e7&amp;autoPlay=false&amp;mute=false&amp;iconColorOver=0x888888&amp;iconColor=0x777777&amp;allowchat=true&amp;height=385&amp;width=640" style="border: 0; outline: 0;" width="640"></iframe><br /><span class="caption">Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty's speech at the U of M’s Humphrey School via <a href="http://theuptake.org/" target="_blank">The UpTake</a>.</span></p><p dir="ltr">Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty made a relatively rare, extremely pleasant — even sweet — appearance at the U of M’s Humphrey School. Friday’s event was also utterly devoid of what we in the journalism game refer to as “news value,” unless you had fallen for the slight pre-event hype suggesting that Republican Pawlenty might make some kind of an announcement about some kind of future political plans. He didn’t.</p><p dir="ltr">What kind of weird word is “sweet” for an event like this? Start with the introduction by Steve Sviggum. Sviggum now teaches what he calls <a href="http://onestop2.umn.edu/courseinfo/viewCourseGuideTermAndSubject.do?campus=UMNTC&amp;searchTerm=UMNTC,1153,Spring,2015&amp;searchSubject=PA%7C+PA&amp;searchCatalogNumber=5990&amp;Submit=View">“Governing Minnesota Style”</a> at the Humphrey School. As GOP speaker of the Minnesota House in the early 2000s, Sviggum worked closely with Pawlenty, who served as his majority leader.</p><p dir="ltr">“The individual who I have here with me today, I love,” said Sviggum, violating the norms of his ancestral culture. “He is the most decent person I’ve ever met in my life.” Pawlenty, before opening his prepared remarks, looked at Sviggum and said, “Love you back.”</p><p dir="ltr">How un-newsworthy was the event? On the issue of his political future, Pawlenty said “I consider myself politically retired,” without even making any kind of Shermanesque pronouncement that would be a barrier to re-entering his former trade at some future time if he chooses. (In fact, I think he specified that he wasn’t ruling anything out.)</p><p dir="ltr">So his “politically retired” remark was news only to those who entered the day believing he might say something concrete about a political comeback (which, as I mentioned, had received a little pre-hype suggesting that he might, until he didn’t).</p><p dir="ltr">The <a href="http://www.startribune.com/politics/statelocal/296251931.html">Strib</a>, the <a href="http://www.twincities.com/politics/ci_27709695/pawlenty-talks-presidential-candidates-and-past-campaigns">Pi-Press</a> and the <a href="http://www.nujournal.com/page/content.detail/id/810216/Pawlenty-appraises-2016-GOP-contest-as-between-Bush--Walker.html?isap=1&amp;nav=5031">AP</a> reporters were all stuck leading with Pawlenty’s musings on the likely future of the Republican presidential nomination race, which ended being nothing more than the current conventional wisdom: Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is likely to be the favorite of the party establishment; Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker seems at the moment well-position to emerge as the favorite of the various factions that want a more hard-line conservative nominee. The only “news” here is that Pawlenty currently sees things about the way the punditocracy does.</p><h4 dir="ltr">The Walker factor</h4><p dir="ltr">But in discussing Walker’s recent rise to (at least temporary) front-runnership among the Republican right, Pawlenty did say one thing I kinda liked about Walker. Walker’s alleged appeal and record of success in Wisconsin have been invisible to me and I have had trouble understanding what the fuss was about. Pawlenty said Walker might succeed over some of the other righties in the field because, running in Wisconsin, he had had to develop the knack for “communicating red messages in blue places.”</p><p dir="ltr">My mind immediately went to former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and a few others from the last round whose entire careers were in such deep red states that they had never learned how to tamp down the rhetoric so it didn’t sound too crazy or radical to those who weren’t entirely playing for the red team. I’m not sure if Pawlenty’s point is a good one, but I’ll be listening to the next few rounds of the get-to-know-Scott-Walker tour with this in mind.</p><p dir="ltr">Pawlenty went a little deeper into pundit territory with another potentially insightful point. Part of the Republican right is libertarian, which is quite a different group, ideologically, from Tea Party types, military hawks and social conservatives. Rand Paul starts out as the choice of libertarians and will get at least a chunk of support in many states. If Pawlenty’s insights above are correct, Paul will eventually drop out and libertarians in the late-voting states will probably decide they prefer Walker to Bush. But, Pawlenty said, “a lot depends on when the libertarian candidate drops out of the race.”</p><p dir="ltr">I take that to mean that if Bush consolidates the mainstream business wing of the party while the right wingers continue to split up the vote among factions, Bush may have the nomination locked up before Walker (or whoever is the surviving challenger) can consolidate all the elements of the right. (I suppose something like this happened last time, with Mitt Romney playing the Bush role and various rightier challengers dividing up the base for too long.)</p><p dir="ltr">The other Pawlenty line I liked from his presentation was that “most public policy issues come down to a tension between equality, liberty, efficiency or security.” It covers a lot of issues, and the words cover a multitude of sins, but the list, after the first one, is actually slightly stacked in favor of words that excite Repubs more than Dems.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Self-mockery</h4><p dir="ltr">Sviggum prompted Pawlenty to talk a bit about his own ill-fated run for the nomination in 2012, which Pawlenty did with likeable self-mockery. He’d be surprised if anyone was very interested in his presidential run which, he said, “lasted about 10 minutes.” He also said it “lasted about as long as a Kardashian marriage,” although this turns out to be a line he’s been delivering <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/click/2012/01/pawlenty-i-dont-feel-bad-for-kris-humphries-111474.html">since soon after he withdrew from the race</a>.</p><p dir="ltr">For what it’s worth, Pawlenty was once viewed as a possible difference-maker in the contest but ended up withdrawing long before the first primary or caucus. He did discuss on Friday the one big strategic blunder that his campaign made. The strategy had called for him to make a splash, as a neighboring state governor, in the famous (and highly overrated) Ames, Iowa, Straw Poll, which would draw the attention and support he needed to become a factor.</p><p dir="ltr">Once Michele Bachmann entered the race — another Minnesotan, an actual Iowa native and a right-wing firebrand — Pawlenty (Pawlenty said) should have revised the strategy and saved his resources. Bachmann, &nbsp;who also flamed out of the race early, but not as early as Pawlenty, won the straw poll and picked up all the momentary attention and support as her prize, leaving Pawlenty’s campaign momentumless and broke.</p><p dir="ltr">Pawlenty currently works as CEO of The Financial Services Roundtable, which lobbies for the financial industry. He took the job after the meltdown of the late George W. Bush era in which his new industry played a big part, and he didn’t soft-pedal that: “Awful behavior” by some in the industry contributed to the worst recession in recent history and “no organization should be too big to fail; no person should be too big to jail.”</p><p dir="ltr">The industry he now represents must surely be near the front lines of the war against cyber threats, and he thinks the government should be doing more. Imagine, he suggested, a hacker that could get into hospital computer files and change blood types of patients in hospital databases. Imagine a cyber criminal who was able to move the decimal point over one space on every dollar figure in bank records. “This is an area where the government needs to be over the tip of their skis, and we’re behind.”</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/03/tim-pawlenty-makes-pleasant-even-sweet-public-appearance#commentsGreater MinnesotaMetro AreaMediaMinneapolisNationBusinessMichele BachmannGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNJeb BushRick PerryScott WalkerTim PawlentyMon, 16 Mar 2015 13:46:02 +0000Eric Black91399 at http://www.minnpost.comRobert Reich on the three economic myths that blind ushttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/03/robert-reich-three-economic-myths-blind-us
<p><a href="http://robertreich.org/post/113280648985">Writing for his eponymous blog, former Secretary of Labor and professor Robert Reich boils</a> the left-right argument about economics down to what he calls the "three biggest myths that blind us to the economic truth." Each myth is followed by the truth with which he would like to replace it.</p><p>Here's his list:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">Myth 1: "<i>The 'job creators' are CEOs, corporations, and the rich, whose taxes must be low in order to induce them to create more jobs." </i>He calls that one "rubbish."<i> <br /></i></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">Myth 2:<i> "</i><i>The critical choice is between the “free market” or “government.”</i> Reich deems that one "baloney."</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">Myth 3: "<i>We should worry most about the size of government."</i> He calls that one just "wrong."</p><p>Of course there are many who will think that his myths are truth and his truths are myth. That's what makes politics. But his short piece (accompanied by a short video in which he says almost exactly the same thing) cuts directly to the chase on most of the issues (outside of foreign policy and social issues) that separate red and blue Americans.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/03/robert-reich-three-economic-myths-blind-us#commentsEconomyBusinessGeographyPoliticsINNThu, 12 Mar 2015 16:30:41 +0000Eric Black91372 at http://www.minnpost.comRidiculous, understandable and pitiful rankings for the 2016 presidential racehttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/03/ridiculous-understandable-and-pitiful-rankings-2016-presidential-race
<p dir="ltr">Here’s a double shocker. The punditocracy has already started compiling a list of likely swing states for the 2016 presidential race and, shocker No. 2, Florida and Ohio are deemed likely to be the key states that will determine the race.</p><p dir="ltr">The Rothenberg &amp; Gonzales Political Report (until recently just the Rothenberg Political Report and congratulations to Nathan Gonzales for his promotion) <a href="http://www.rothenberggonzales.com/ratings/president/2016-presidential-ratings-march-6-2015">has already started ranking states according to swingliness</a>. (And yes, I know, that is not a word.)</p><p dir="ltr">The effort at such rankings is ridiculous, understandable and pitiful. Ridiculous because the election is 20 months away. Understandable because birds gotta fly, bees gotta sting and pundits gotta do this. And pitiful because it’s always Ohio and Florida and most of the rest of us are chopped liver.</p><p dir="ltr">Ohio, which ranks seventh among the states in electoral votes with 16, has given those electoral votes to the winner in each presidential election since 1964 (that’s 13 in a row, the only state to have done so) and all but one election since 1948 (that’s 17 out of the last 18).</p><p dir="ltr">Florida really entered the ranks of the swingliest states in 2000 (when it played a &nbsp;memorably swingly role and we won’t ever really know who got the most votes) but is enormously important because it has 29 electoral votes — fourth most among all states and by far (by 12 actually) the most among swing states.</p><p dir="ltr">Rothenberg and Gonzales (who have rated every state in likeliness to give its electoral votes to the blue or the red ticket without any real idea yet who will be the nominee on at least one of those tickets) actually named four pure swing states with no lean either way — Florida, Ohio, Virginia and Colorado. Florida and Ohio are the biggest two.</p><p>Which brings me to the last adjective above: pitiful. By what logic other than the &nbsp;strange logic of Electoral College-ism would the citizens of the world’s leading democracy accept a system in which the voters of 40-something of the 50 states accept that their individual votes are irrelevant to the outcome but the citizens of four to 10 “swing states” will determine who will be president — and that in all recent cases the list of those four to 10 always includes Ohio and Florida?</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/03/ridiculous-understandable-and-pitiful-rankings-2016-presidential-race#commentsMediaNationBusinessGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNelection 2016Thu, 12 Mar 2015 13:44:51 +0000Eric Black91331 at http://www.minnpost.comAdjectives to help understand the Republican senators’ letter to Iranhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/03/adjectives-help-understand-republican-senators-letter-iran
<p dir="ltr">As you have undoubtedly read or heard by now, 47 Republican senators have signed an “open letter to the Islamic Republic of Iran” warning that any deal negotiated between Iran and a U.S. coalition of nations regarding Iran’s nuclear program will not be binding on the United States, at least past the inauguration of a new president in 2017.</p><p dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/03/09/world/middleeast/document-the-letter-senate-republicans-addressed-to-the-leaders-of-iran.html?_r=0">The full text of the letter is here</a>.</p><p dir="ltr">The White House is disgusted. President Obama’s spokester Josh Earnest <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/10/world/asia/white-house-faults-gop-senators-letter-to-irans-leaders.html?emc=eta1&amp;_r=0">called it</a> “just the latest in a strategy, a partisan strategy, to undermine the president’s ability to conduct foreign policy and advance our national interests around the world,” following the other recent insult by House Republicans to organize the Benjamin Netanyahu address to Congress without coordinating the visit with the White House.</p><p dir="ltr">Joe <a href="http://qz.com/359228/false-and-dangerous-joe-biden-responds-to-republican-senators-iran-letter/">Biden called the letter</a> “false” and “dangerous” and “beneath the dignity of an institution I revere,” referring to the U.S. Senate. Louisiana Gov. (and presidential aspirant) <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/bobby-jindal-joe-biden-tom-cotton-iran-letter-115938.html#ixzz3U1Lf9v20">Bobby Jindal then fired back</a> at Biden, tweeting: “VP Biden owes Sen. Tom Cotton an apology. He wore the boots in Iraq,” referring to lead author and Sen. Cotton’s service in the Army, although I’m not real sure that is an ironclad argument for agreeing with his recent epistolary project.</p><p dir="ltr">My thoughts can be organized around a few adjectives. Cotton’s letter is obnoxious, unhelpful and unprecedented. It is accurate. It is insincere. It is unsubtle. It is partisan and political. It is irresponsible. It is constitutional. And, viewed through the correct satirical prism, it is humorous.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Accurate</h4><p dir="ltr">Let’s start with accurate. In the guise of explaining how the U.S. constitutional system works, Cotton of Arkansas makes the point that an agreement signed by &nbsp;Obama but not ratified by Congress is not binding, except on Obama and his appointees. If the next president chooses to do so, it could be abrogated at the stroke of a pen and the U.S. sanctions on Iran could be reimposed.</p><p dir="ltr">But Cotton’s letter doesn’t deal with the fact that the sanctions on Iran are multinational. The U.S.-led negotiations that Cotton seeks to scuttle includes the involvement of five of the other most powerful nations in the world, namely Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany. If the next president were to abrogate the deal per Cotton’s warning, there is no guarantee and, in my opinion, not that much chance that the rest of the countries that have helped negotiate the deal would go back to enforcing the sanctions just because the Americans reserved the right to change their mind after every election. The other powers are in this deal because they support the idea of a negotiated settlement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. Cotton's letter can only encourge them to doubt the reliability of the U.S. in any such venture.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Constitutional</h4><p dir="ltr">Let’s move to constitutional, which is practically the same point. A lot people who are unhappy with the letter claim falsely that the letter violates the U.S. Constitution, which puts the president in charge of foreign policy. But It doesn’t — &nbsp;not really.</p><p dir="ltr">The only thing <a href="http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html">Article II (in which the powers of the president are delineated)</a> says is this:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“[The president] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls.”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">That’s it. Clearly (although it is not clearly stated anywhere) the president and his appointees would have to conduct negotiations that could lead to treaties, but no treaties are valid without a two-thirds vote of ratification by the Senate. The letter is not signed by a majority of senators, but well more than the one-third that would be necessary to block ratification of any treaty.</p><p dir="ltr">And anyway, the current talks with Iran are not designed to produce an actual treaty. You may have noted that in the one and only reference to the supposed power of the president to conduct foreign policy, the one and only power assigned him is to “Treaties.” In fact, in this matter and many others, we are following a somewhat imaginary Constitution, or perhaps we should say the Constitution “as evolved,” such evolution occurring without the benefit of actual language being added or changed and therefore a little harder to insist upon.</p><p dir="ltr">On the other hand, while the Constitution doesn’t put any limits on members of the Senate contacting foreign nations to interfere with ongoing executive branch negotiations, there is a federal statute that pretty much bans it for any citizen. It’s called the “Logan Act,” dates from believe-it-or-not 1797, makes it a federal crime if any U.S. citizen — “without authority of the United States” — “carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States.” Some <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/09/1369711/-47-GOP-Senators-and-Members-of-Congress-Violated-the-Logan-Act?detail=facebook_sf">bloggers are wondering</a> whether the signers of the letter have violated this law, but an actual <a href="http://www.lawfareblog.com/2015/03/logan-act/">legal scholar writing for Lawfareblog cites several reasons</a> that prosecution won’t get too far. I think he’s probably right.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Insincere</h4><p dir="ltr">Let’s move to insincere. The letter begins:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system.&nbsp;Thus, we are writing to bring to your attention two features of our Constitution — the power to make binding international agreements and the different character of federal offices — which you should seriously consider as negotiations progress.”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">Ha ha ha. Just a little constitutional explainer here. “Bull cookies” (as the Colonel Potter character used to say on “M*A*S*H”) — &nbsp;also “what a crock of beans.” Sen. Cotton leaves out of his letter to the Iranians that he does not favor any negotiations at all. Cotton favors a U.S. policy of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions">“regime change,”</a> which is the cute phrase developed by certain Americans who do not like to state plainly that they believe United States has been vouchsafed with a not-explicitly-Constitutional power to remove any or all foreign governments that do not come up to its standards.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Unsubtle</h4><p dir="ltr">I’ll skip to “unsubtle” here. It is ridiculous and insulting to the intelligence of anyone reading it to think that they would take the letter at face value as a primer on “our constitutional system” because information about Iranian ignorance on said system has “come to our attention.”</p><p dir="ltr">In reality, the letter is a threat to the Iranians that if there is a successful conclusion of this negotiation, which is universally understood to be for a 10-year term, they cannot count on anything more than the one year plus a few months remaining in the second Obama term. It is a threat to Iran that if a Republican candidate wins in 2016, the 10-year agreement is not binding. It is a threat that anything along these lines that requires Senate support will be undermined by the overwhelming opposition of at least 47 members of the party that currently controls the Senate and that by themselves could sustain a filibuster.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Unprecedented</h4><p dir="ltr">That makes it unprecedented. I know of no instance in which so many members of Congress attempted to interfere in a presidential negotiation in this way in advance of a deal being negotiated. You could study the events that led the post-World War I Senate to rejected President Woodrow Wilson’s effort to get the United States to join the League of Nations. It’s a large, important and amazing tale. But you won’t find evidence of Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge (R-Mass.) telling the delegates to the Versailles Conference not to bother completing the negotiations because the United States wouldn’t be joining.</p><p dir="ltr">Before we finish with unprecedented, let’s consider the precedent. Are the 47 Republican signers prepared to set the precedent, knowing that in some future case it will be a Republican president and a Democratic majority in the Senate, of the Senate playing the new role of interfering directly in negotiations and urging another country not to make a deal with the sitting president?</p><p dir="ltr">During, for example, the delicate Nixon-era negotiations that led to the opening of U.S. China relations, what if a group of senators had sent an open letter to the people of China undermining the talks and announcing that the only way they would want such relations would be if the Chinese people would overthrow Mao and Communism?</p><p dir="ltr">Writing for <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/gop-iran-letter-115943.html">Politico, Michael Crowley cites a few instances</a> of Congress interfering in the conduct of foreign policy, but nothing on his list resembles this effort to undermine ongoing negotiations.</p><p dir="ltr">The Cotton et al letter is not unconstitutional (not to mention that it’s covered by the unquestionable First Amendment right of the senators to express themselves). But it’s reckless and dangerous. It’s a product of Obama Derangement Syndrome. If, in fact, there’s an argument that blowing up the current negotiations will lead to a happier ending, let’s hear how that would happen. It’s a tough case to make, but let’s hear it. But such rational discussion is unnecessary to Syndrome sufferers who know that the deal, which they haven’t seen, will be a bad one because Obama is for it.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Partisan and political</h4><p dir="ltr">It’s worth noting that seven Republican senators declined to sign the Cotton letter. They are Bob Corker of Tennessee, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, Susan Collins of Maine, Dan Coats of Indiana, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. But the fact that 47 Republicans and zero Democrats signed the letter makes it clearly a partisan document. The fact that all of the Republican senators running for president (Ted Cruz of Texas, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Marco Rubio of Florida) signed the letter with others in the field <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/03/10/jeb-bush-scott-walker-weigh-in-on-gop-senators-letter-to-iran/">(Jindal, as mentioned, and Scott Walker and Jeb Bush, too</a>) joining in makes it pretty clear that on Planet Republican this line is considered a winner.</p><p dir="ltr">Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, called the letter "out of step with the best traditions of American leadership."</p><h4 dir="ltr">Obnoxious and unhelpful</h4><p>See above.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Hilarious</h4><p dir="ltr">No, the letter and the situation perhaps don’t qualify as hilarious, so I left that adjective off my list at the top. But in today’s media world, we have the advantage of relentless satirists who can help us laugh at anything.</p><p dir="ltr">For example, New Yorker satirist Andy Borowitz likes to cloak his ridicule in a straight news voice, as in <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/iran-offers-to-mediate-talks-between-republicans-and-obama">this piece</a>, headlined “Iran offers to mediate talks between Republicans and Obama,” which begins:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">TEHRAN (The Borowitz Report)—Stating that “their continuing hostilities are a threat to world peace,” Iran has offered to mediate talks between congressional Republicans and President Obama.</p><p dir="ltr">Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, made the offer one day after Iran received what he called a “worrisome letter” from Republican leaders, which suggested to him that “the relationship between Republicans and Obama has deteriorated dangerously.”</p></blockquote><p>Or <a href="http://thedailyshow.cc.com/full-episodes/l3gvy3/march-10--2015---abbi-jacobson---ilana-glazer">Jon Stewart’s piece leading off Tuesday night’s “Daily Show,"</a> in which he digs up the old footage suggesting that not only the Republicans, but the Democrats who are complaining about the Republicans, are all hypocrites.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/03/adjectives-help-understand-republican-senators-letter-iran#commentsBarack ObamaCongressNationGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNBenjamin NetanyahuIranWed, 11 Mar 2015 13:50:11 +0000Eric Black91346 at http://www.minnpost.comAttack on John Kline: A case study of our current political dysfunctionhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/03/attack-john-kline-case-study-our-current-political-dysfunction
<p dir="ltr">For those, including your humble and obedient ink-stained wretch, who spend too much time following government and politics, there is no shortage of opportunities to document the nature and scope of the current dysfunction. But here’s one that happened to land in my inbox that, in no spectacular way — in fact, in a now altogether ordinary way — provides an entry point for understanding where we are.</p><p dir="ltr">It is a press release from Americans for Limited Government (ALG) attacking one of its own, Republican U.S. Rep. John Kline of Minnesota, who voted for the most recent “clean bill” funding the budget of the Department of Homeland Security.</p><p dir="ltr">In this instance, “clean bill” means this version of the department’s budget that didn’t explicitly prohibit the executive branch from using any of the funds to implement President Obama’s executive orders to halt deportation efforts against various categories of immigrants who entered the country illegally.</p><p dir="ltr">In one general press release (and smaller localized ones focusing on the vote of each of each target), ALG doesn’t just disagree with the 75 Republicans who voted in favor of “cleanly” funding DHS, doesn’t just criticize them for doing so, ALG accuses them of cowardice, or aiding and abetting “the shredding of the U.S. Constitution,” and of violating their oath of office by voting to keep the Department of Homeland Security open with all of its employees getting paid.</p><p dir="ltr">As you can tell by the name, Americans for Limited Government is a righty group that thinks government does too much. And, as you can see if you take its name literally, it seeks to imply that anyone who favors the government doing anything that ALG thinks the government shouldn’t do must be in favor of “unlimited government,” although in a literal sense that describes almost no Americans. This is part of the modern way of using language to turn honest policy differences into clashes between darkness and light.</p><p dir="ltr">ALG and John Kline are, in a general sense, on the same side of the great policy divide and on the narrower set of contemporary issues relating to immigration and deportation. <a href="http://www.ontheissues.org/house/John_Kline_Immigration.htm">Kline consistently voted</a> for building a fence on the border and opposes efforts to make it easier for undocumented immigrants to stay in the country.</p><p dir="ltr">ALG and Kline both oppose Obama’s executive orders granting “clemency” to certain categories of undocumented immigrants and both agree that he exceeded his constitutional authority in issuing them.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Key differences</h4><p dir="ltr">Their differences on the recent vote come down to the question of whether House Republicans should have continued to insist on blocking funding for Obama’s orders after it was clear that to do so would mean the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, furloughing many of its employees and requiring others to work without pay.</p><p dir="ltr">In the end, the whole thing had a bit of a kabuki theater quality. The Republican leadership in both houses of Congress has decided, and has announced, that it is anxious to avoid actions that make the party look too radical, crazy or dangerous. Trying to impeach Obama, risking the credit rating of the United States by refusing the raise the debt ceiling and shutting down important departments of the government are on the list of things they fear might make them look that way. Undoubtedly, there was some discussion behind closed doors and probably some polling about which party the public would blame if the Homeland Security shutdown had occurred, and it was concluded that the Republicans would be blamed.</p><p dir="ltr">So a certain number of Republicans had to join almost all the Democrats to pass the funding bill. The majority of House Republicans did vote in favor shutting down the department (although technically, all they favored was passing a bill to fund the department that would not have become law and ultimately would have resulted in a shutdown). Among House Republicans it was 167-75 (with three not voting) to reject the “clean” bill. But with all Democrats who voted (six did not vote), those 75 Republicans created a majority to end the “shutdown” crisis for now.</p><p dir="ltr">So to call this an example of the current dysfunction, as I did above, might be an overstatement. In our strangely structured constitutional form of government, when control of various top power positions is divided across party lines (as it usually is), compromises or bipartisan coalitions are necessary for almost any action to occur. ‘Twas ever thus.</p><p dir="ltr">But this action was not really a compromise. Obama, believing (correctly, after six years of waiting for it to happen) that a compromise immigration law could not reach his desk, chose to stretch the limits of his executive authority (using a power that he had previously said he lacked) to grant a form of “amnesty” to portion of the undocumented immigrants. The time to compromise was past and the Republicans had to choose between surrender and shutdown. After a couple of acts of the kabuki play in which they acted like they might choose shutdown, they chose a form of surrender that required only a third of their number to leave their fingerprints on the document of surrender.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Punish or threaten</h4><p dir="ltr">Then comes a group like ALG to punish or at least threaten the quislings who collaborated. One of the reasons for the current dysfunction is that certain important players and funders and presidential aspirants, disproportionately on the Republican side, have decided that compromise is bad. So, at the end of a sad story like this one, they put out a press release shaming the quislings and warning them against future acts of similar perfidy.</p><p dir="ltr">Reps. Kline, Erik Paulsen and Tom Emmer — all three voted for the “clean” homeland security bill — represent relatively (but not extremely) safe Republican districts. It used to be that an entrenched incumbent House member didn’t have to worry much about a primary challenge. But the new normal, especially on the Republican side, is that many incumbents do have to worry about a Tea Party-ish or Libertarian or Moral Majoritarian primary challenger. And one of the ways to bring such a challenge upon oneself is to be among the rank-breakers from the righty line on an issue like “amnesty for illegal immigrants.”</p><p dir="ltr">Personally, I don’t believe the three Minnesotans have that much to worry about on that score. And they were not singled out for the ALG treatment. But the ALG denunciation is intended to warn all of the 75 rank-breakers that they need to worry constantly about drifting toward the mushy center or toward future hideous acts of compromise.</p><p dir="ltr">Here’s the full text of the ALG press release, which ends with a list of the traitorous 75:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;" dir="ltr">“Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement condemning <a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2015/roll109.xml">75 House Republicans who voted to fund President Barack Obama’s unconstitutional executive amnesty</a> for 4.5 million illegal immigrants with U.S.-born children:</p><blockquote><p style="padding-left: 30px;" dir="ltr">“The vote to fund President Obama’s unconstitutional executive amnesty will have a profound negative impact on our nation for years to come. The 75 Republicans who lost courage have aided and abetted the shredding of the U.S. Constitution by giving Obama the funds to rewrite federal law.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;" dir="ltr">“Each of these Republicans took an oath of office less than two months prior to their vote. And in that oath, they swore to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Their failure may forever put Congress in a junior rubberstamp role for any presidential action. There is a time when every elected official is forced to make a choice. Unfortunately, the cowardly 75 chose to violate their oaths and break trust with America.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;" dir="ltr">“I sincerely hope that the 75 find the heart to stand up to the President in the many upcoming battles.”</p><p><strong><strong>Correction: </strong></strong><em><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">As originally published, this post contained an inaccurate description of a group active in immigration matters. FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, is not liberal advocacy group, as I described it, but a very conservative one. I have removed the inaccurate reference and appreciate the MinnPost reader who called the error to my attention. EB.<br /></span></em><strong>&nbsp;</strong></p></blockquote>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/03/attack-john-kline-case-study-our-current-political-dysfunction#commentsBarack ObamaCongressNationImmigrationGeographyPoliticsINNErik PaulsenJohn KlineTom EmmerTue, 10 Mar 2015 13:38:19 +0000Eric Black91314 at http://www.minnpost.com‘Meet the Press’ follies: Even modest standards of critical thinking disappearhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/03/meet-press-follies-even-modest-standards-critical-thinking-disappear
<p dir="ltr">I fear I may become increasingly useless, not-to-say repetitive, as a blogger the more I try to apply modest standards of critical thinking to what some politicians and some TV pundits say on the air. But before they cart me off, a couple of items from Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” which I still persist in watching.</p><p dir="ltr">NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell was in Iowa covering an event at which former Florida governor and undeclared presidential candidate Jeb Bush was attempting to woo support. “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd debriefed her on camera, thus:</p><p dir="ltr">Todd: “Brass tacks, what did you learn from yesterday’s cattle call?”</p><p dir="ltr">O’Donnell: “When I talk to Republicans here, they say Jeb Bush’s biggest problem is trying to appear new. [Me: What could that possibly mean, and how might a 62-year-old man who first ran for office in 1992 go about “appearing new.”]</p><p dir="ltr">O’Donnell: “So I think what he tries to do is to bring his Florida resume here, to talk about what [he] says are conservative accomplishments…” [Makes perfect sense for Bush to talk about what he accomplished as governor, the only office he’s ever held. But considering he left office eight years ago, what could this have to do with “appearing new?”]</p><p dir="ltr">Then, as old hands at the folkways of Iowa Republicans, Kelly and Chuck shared a laugh at Bush’s utter cluelessness, thus:</p><p dir="ltr">O’Donnell: “He came to the Pizza Ranch [and] said he ‘came here for the pizza.’ But, as you know, Chuck, when you come to the Pizza Ranch you really order the chicken. So Jeb Bush has some work to do here.”</p><p dir="ltr">Maybe Bush knew that candidates always order the chicken but <em>he was attempting to appear new.</em></p><p dir="ltr">Later, Todd interviewed Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC.</p><p dir="ltr">Graham, who is mostly known for hawkish views on foreign and military policy, spent most of the segment describing Iran as our enemy. (“Iran is our enemy…They’re the enemy of us. They’re an evil regime… I fear Iran more than I fear ISIL… Absolutely, it’s not even close.”)</p><p><iframe frameborder="0" height="500" scrolling="no" src="http://player.theplatform.com/p/2E2eJC/nbcNewsOffsite?guid=mtp_grahamiran_150308" width="635"></iframe></p><p dir="ltr">But because Graham has confessed to also exploring a presidential candidacy, Todd followed a line of questioning that I appreciated, on the recent good economic news. As part of Obama Derangement Syndrome, most Republicans find it difficult to say that anything positive might’ve occurred under the current incumbent. So Todd put Graham on the spot. The latest unemployment rate, 5.5 percent, is the lowest in seven years. The most recent report showed that unemployment had come down in every state in the union, which last happened in 1984.</p><p dir="ltr">Asked Todd: “You and other Republicans put out a lot of doom and gloom about Obama’s policies in 2009 and 2010. I understand that we’ve still got some wage issues to go. But do you now acknowledge that some of this rhetoric was wrong and that there has been some progress?”</p><p dir="ltr">Replied Graham, whom I used to rate as a relatively straight talker: “I think that we have stagnant middle-class wage growth. And I think the labor participation is at an all-time low. So if your argument is that we’re on the road to recovery, that we have a sound economy under President Obama, no I don’t agree with that at all.”</p><p dir="ltr">Todd: “So you don’t believe any of these improvements are good?”</p><p dir="ltr">Graham: “I believe it’s always good to have lower unemployment. But it’s never good to be underemployed. It’s never good to have the greatest number of people in the history of America not looking for work anymore. And I think the structural problems created by Obamacare are yet to come.”</p><p dir="ltr">Todd let it go. He didn’t mention that the recession of the past seven years began under President George W. Bush and was the worst in the United States since the Great Depression. It’s a little silly, although quite normal, to assume that everything that happens to the economy is the fairly direct result of the policies of the current occupant of the Oval Office. But if Obama is responsible for the slow recovery, how does Graham or other derangement sufferers deal with the fact that the economy went off the cliff under Republican presidential leadership?</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/03/meet-press-follies-even-modest-standards-critical-thinking-disappear#commentsEconomyBarack ObamaMediaCongressNationBusinessGeographyPoliticsINNJeb BushMeet the PressMon, 09 Mar 2015 13:48:02 +0000Eric Black91303 at http://www.minnpost.comNetanyahu’s speech gets raves — and serious policy questions go unansweredhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/03/netanyahu-s-speech-gets-raves-and-serious-policy-questions-go-unanswered
<p dir="ltr">In his speech Tuesday to a joint session of Congress (minus those Democrats who boycotted in protest against the fact that the speech and visit had not been coordinated with the Obama White House), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the deal emerging from talks with Iran to forestall the development of an Iranian nuclear arsenal would be a “bad deal,” so bad that no deal would be better.</p><p dir="ltr">The talks, between Iran and the so-called “P-5 plus one” (which refers to the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany) have not been concluded. Therefore, there is no actual final deal to assess. But Netanyahu claimed to know enough about the negotiations to conclude that the deal would not prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and in fact would “all but guarantee” that Iran does acquire nuclear weapons.</p><p dir="ltr">The deal is believed to create a 10-year period during which, in exchange for relief from powerful economic sanctions, Iran would agree to allow highly invasive inspections of its nuclear program to ensure that it was not crossing the line into the development of nuclear weapons.</p><p dir="ltr">A better deal, Netanyahu said, would require Iran to give up and disassemble its nuclear energy infrastructure, stop expressing its desire to destroy Israel, stop supporting terrorist groups and stop interfering in the affairs of its neighbors.</p><p dir="ltr">Instead of being a “farewell to arms,” Netanyahu said, this deal would be a “farewell to arms control.”</p><p dir="ltr">The alternative, Netanyahu said, is not war but a much better deal. The idea seems to be to back up from where things stand and go back to many issues that have already been at least tentatively settled and insist on more Iranian concessions. Said Netanyahu:</p><p dir="ltr">“If Iran threatens to walk away from the table — and this often happens in a Persian bazaar — call their bluff. They'll be back, because they need the deal a lot more than you do.”</p><p dir="ltr">In its immediate aftermath, Netanyahu’s speech received generally rave reviews as to how well-written and well-delivered it was. David Horowitz of the Times of Israel called it “the speech of his life.”</p><p dir="ltr">On substance, views were much more mixed.</p><h4 dir="ltr">'Not one new idea'</h4><p dir="ltr">The Obama White House characterized the speech as containing “literally not one new idea,” consisting of “all rhetoric but no plan of action” to forestall Iran’s acquisition of nukes. President Obama himself said: "The prime minister didn't offer any viable alternatives."</p><p dir="ltr">Perhaps not. Or perhaps, when Netanyahu said “Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand,” he meant to imply however ambiguously that Israel reserves the right to take unilateral military action, perhaps to bomb the facilities housing the Iranian nuclear program, if they United States and its allies seem to be relying on a bad deal that was worse than no deal.</p><p dir="ltr">A few comments from journalists and experts before and after the speech:</p><p dir="ltr"><a href="http://video.foxnews.com/v/4090960289001/krauthammer-on-two-sharp-messages-of-netanyahus-speech/?intcmp=obnetwork#sp=show-clips">Charles Krauthammer on Fox News</a> called it “an extraordinary speech” and hailed Netanyahu for that passage just above about Israel’s willingness to act alone. Krauthammer definitely viewed it as a threat to take unilateral military action and added that the standing ovation Netanyahu received after that line would be used to argue that at least the U.S. Congress would support such a course.</p><p dir="ltr">On Washingtonpost.com, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/03/03/why-netanyahus-speech-didnt-do-his-american-allies-any-favors/?hpid=z3">Paul Waldman challenged</a> Netanyahu’s logic: “To call that position ‘absurd’ is too kind. You don’t have to be some kind of foreign policy whiz to grasp that there’s something weird about arguing that 1) Iran is a nation run by genocidal maniacs; 2) they want nuclear weapons so they can annihilate Israel; and 3) the best way to stop this is to abandon negotiations to limit their nuclear program and just wait to see what they do. But that’s the position Netanyahu and his supporters in the Republican Party are now committed to.”</p><p dir="ltr">Before the speech, on CNN, Fareed Zakaria said that for 25 years Netanyahu has been calling Iran’s breakthrough to nuclear weapons “imminent.” For the last 15 years, he said Iran was a year away from getting the bomb — in some cases he said only a few months away, even though Israeli intelligence officials have said they disagreed. Zakaria said Netanyahu needed to give a speech that “feels a little more credible than 25 years of predictions that have been wrong.”</p><h4 dir="ltr">'Toxic' relationship</h4><p dir="ltr">Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, said the Netanyahu-Obama relationship was “toxic,” adding “it started out bad and went downhill from there.</p><p dir="ltr">In his never-ending quest to elevate the discourse, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/rush-limbaugh-obama-bejamin-netanyahu-115703.html#ixzz3TMN15BvV">Rush Limbaugh said</a>: “You look at how Obama has treated and does treat Netanyahu, you would think that Netanyahu was a white policeman from Ferguson, Missouri. … Or that he was one of the cops that choked Eric Garner or he was one of the jurors in the Trayvon Martin case.”</p><p dir="ltr">In an interview after the speech, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who, as a recent chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee has plenty of inside knowledge, complained that “what he didn’t say is what would happen if there is no deal.” But Feinstein agreed with Netanyahu that the 10-year term of the likely deal was too short.</p><p dir="ltr">As quoted in the Jerusalem Post, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said afterwards that as a friend of Israel, she was near tears during his speech, calling it "an insult to the intelligence of the United States." She said she was "saddened by the condescension toward our knowledge of the threat posed by Iran."</p><p dir="ltr">The full text of the Netanyahu speech, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/03/03/full-text-netanyahus-address-to-congress/">via the Washington Post, is here</a>.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/03/netanyahu-s-speech-gets-raves-and-serious-policy-questions-go-unanswered#commentsArmed ForcesBarack ObamaCongressNationWorldGeographyPoliticsINNBenjamin NetanyahuIranIsrealTue, 03 Mar 2015 22:29:42 +0000Eric Black91245 at http://www.minnpost.comWhat do Republicans think Obama believes deep down?http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/02/what-do-republicans-think-obama-believes-deep-down
<p>Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker answered "I don't know" when asked whether he thought President Obama is a Christian. That led political scientist Alexander Theodoridis of the University of California campus at Merced to to post (<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/02/25/scott-walkers-view-of-obamas-religion-makes-him-a-moderate/?postshare=1651424880388887">on the Washington Post's "Monkey Cage" blog) the results of a recent survey he took exploring the same question</a>.</p><div class="float-left"><div class="minnpost-ads-ad minnpost-ads-ad-Middle "><script type="text/javascript">OAS_AD("Middle");</script></div></div><p>Theodoridis asked: “Which of these do you think most likely describes what President Obama believes deep down? Muslim, Christian, atheist, spiritual, or I don’t know."</p><p>Obama professes to be a Christian and goes to church. But a surprisingly small portion of respondents accept that "Christianity" (whatever they might think that entails) is the best word to describe what he believes deep down. Unsurprisingly, the results vary significantly by political orientation, but they are all interesting. The responses were:</p><p><strong>Among Democrats:</strong></p><ul><li>Christian: 45 percent</li><li>I Don't Know: 26 percent</li><li>Spiritual: 17 percent</li><li>Muslim: 10 percent</li><li>Atheist: 2 percent</li></ul><p><strong>Among Independents:</strong></p><ul><li>I don't know: 47 percent</li><li>Muslim: 26 percent</li><li>Christian: 16 percent</li><li>Spiritual: 9 percent</li><li>Atheist: 2 percent</li></ul><p><strong>Among Republicans:</strong></p><ul><li>Muslim: 54 percent</li><li>I don't know: 29 percent</li><li>Christian: 9 percent</li><li>Atheist: 5 percent</li><li>Spiritual: 3 percent</li></ul><p>Theodoridis noted that, among Republicans, Walker's answer of "I don't know" made him something of a moderate.</p><p></p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/02/what-do-republicans-think-obama-believes-deep-down#commentsBarack ObamaNationGeographyPoliticsINNWed, 25 Feb 2015 18:13:44 +0000Eric Black91166 at http://www.minnpost.comHillary Clinton, the brand — and the search for latest rebrandhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/02/hillary-clinton-brand-and-search-latest-rebrand
<p dir="ltr">How many times can the word “brand” come up in a story about the preparation of presidential campaign?</p><p dir="ltr">During the 1968 presidential campaign, a young writer named Joe McGinniss got insider access to the Madison Avenue geniuses who were involved in what we might call stage-managing the presidential campaign of Richard Nixon. Nixon had famously “lost” the 1960 presidential debates against John F. Kennedy not because of anything Nixon said but because he looked so much less appealing. Heading into 1968 the Nixon team was determined to learn the right lessons and created a nonsensical slogan — “the new Nixon” — to ask the public to take a fresh look at what nowadays we might call Nixon 2.0, the latest upgrade of a familiar product.</p><p dir="ltr">Basically, all McGinniss did was describe how Nixon’s media-savvy young advisers successfully sold the new product, but his book caused a major sensation because most Americans hadn’t gotten wise or cynical about triumph of marketing over substance in politics.</p><p dir="ltr">We’re past that now. If we were ever shocked or cynical about the similarity between the selling of the latest “new Coke” and the selling of the latest old-new candidate, we’ve all been wised up. Monday’s Washington Post <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-making-of-hillary-50-marketing-wizards-help-reimagine-clinton-brand/2015/02/21/bfb01120-b919-11e4-aa05-1ce812b3fdd2_story.html">had a story about the many, many marketing geniuses who are preparing Hillary Clinton,</a> not the Hillary Clinton we’ve known since her husband first ran for president 23 years ago but the latest release, the new rebranded brand, for the 2016 race that she may just possibly decide to run.</p><p dir="ltr">The headline: “The making of Hillary 5.0: Marketing wizards help re-imagine Clinton brand.”</p><p dir="ltr">Brand brand brand. That’s the word now. Also “branding,” and in the case of someone like Clinton who’s been around for a while, “rebranding.” The word “advertising” scarcely appears. That’s so 20th century (even though, as with all modern campaigns, more money will be spent on TV ads than anything else). It’s too limiting. It’s all marketing and branding now. The Clinton behemoth being assembled includes “Wendy Clark, who specializes in marketing age-old brands such as Coca-Cola to younger and more diverse customers.”</p><p dir="ltr">Including the headline and the photo caption, I count 23 appearances of “brand,” “branding,” and “rebranding” (including, it should be acknowledged, some people being quoted saying that rebranding Clinton is not the key but rather whether she has any new ideas, but trust me, this is not a story about substantive ideas). Nobody is dumb enough to think that we are smart enough to handle a campaign of substance or ideas.</p><p dir="ltr">Here are some examples from the piece:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“Clinton and her image-makers are sketching ways to refresh the well-established brand for tomorrow’s marketplace. In their mission to present voters with a winning picture of the likely candidate, no detail is too big or too small — from her economic opportunity agenda to the design of the ‘H’ in her future campaign logo….</p><p dir="ltr">“‘Look at Budweiser,’” said a former campaign adviser to President Obama, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly. ‘That’s what Hillary Clinton is. She’s not a microbrew. She’s one of the biggest, most powerful brands ever in the country, and recognizing that is important.’…</p><p dir="ltr">“Ahead of her campaign launch, Clinton has tapped some of the Democratic Party’s star strategists as well as two of corporate America’s branding wizards: Wendy Clark, who specializes in marketing age-old brands such as Coca-Cola to younger and more diverse customers; and Roy Spence, a decades-long Clinton friend who dreamed up the ‘Don’t Mess With Texas’ anti-littering slogan as well as flashy ad campaigns for Southwest Airlines and Wal-Mart.</p><p dir="ltr">“…Spence and Clark have been credited with creating three-dimensional personalities around otherwise dull consumer brands. At Coca-Cola, Clark spearheaded the ‘Share a Coke’ campaign to put names such as Brittany and Zach on soda cans, a marketing move that <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/share-a-coke-credited-with-a-pop-in-sales-1411661519">boosted sales</a> among millennials. Spence helped DoubleTree Hotels make the freshly baked chocolate chip cookies the chain serves guests upon check-in an icon for its sales pitch of warm comfort for beleaguered travelers….</p><p dir="ltr">“In 2008, however, Clinton’s rebranding went badly, starting with a misreading of the zeitgeist that had her stressing her commander-in-chief qualifications when the public preferred Obama’s promise of hope and change…”</p></blockquote>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/02/hillary-clinton-brand-and-search-latest-rebrand#commentsNationPoliticselection 2016Hillary ClintonRichard NixonTue, 24 Feb 2015 16:41:15 +0000Eric Black91149 at http://www.minnpost.comFighting words: Scrutinizing the dust-ups over statements by Giuliani and Obamahttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/02/fighting-words-scrutinizing-dust-ups-over-statements-giuliani-and-obama
<p dir="ltr">Words matter, sometimes for the wrong reason, and often not because of what they actually mean but because of the subliminal baggage that some communications guru think they carry.</p><p dir="ltr">Two current cases:</p><p dir="ltr">Rudy Giuliani’s ludicrous decision (and it seems clear that this was a decision, not a slip of the tongue) over whether President Obama loves America has set off a brouhaha that will not end until every major Republican figure has been asked whether he or she believes that Obama loves America. I’m not sure this is the best use of everyone’s time or mental energy.</p><p dir="ltr">In my humble opinion, there are only a few acceptable answers to that question, including:</p><ul><li dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 10px;"><p dir="ltr">It’s a stupid question. Ask me something else.</p></li><li dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 10px;"><p dir="ltr">President Obama says he does love America and I take him at his word as I would hope he would take me at mine. If we can agree on that, we can move on to the question of how to make America a better country, where our views may differ and the differences might be worth knowing, except for the fact that if I do run for president, I will be running against someone other than Mr. Obama who, if I understand the situation correctly, cannot run for the office again during his current lifetime.</p></li><li dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 10px;"><p dir="ltr">To quote Samuel Johnson: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”</p></li></ul><p dir="ltr">Giuliani, who I am explicitly not saying is stupid or evil because I’m no expert on such matters, has declined to retract his statement. But he did clarify that he did not mean to impugn or question Obama’s patriotism because “he’s a patriot, I’m sure.” It’s just that Obama criticizes America so often that it makes him seem more of a “critic” than a “supporter.”</p><div class="float-left"><div class="minnpost-ads-ad minnpost-ads-ad-Middle "><script type="text/javascript">OAS_AD("Middle");</script></div></div><p dir="ltr">So, to do this gibberish the kindness of taking it seriously, after explicitly saying that he is not retracting his “doesn’t love America” statement, he pretty much retracts it (how do you square “I’m sure he’s a patriot” with “he just doesn’t happen to love his country”?) and then suggests that the essence of loving one’s country is to decline to criticize it, even when it is wrong.</p><p dir="ltr">Giuliani, so far as I know, hasn’t actually said that, rather than criticizing America, Obama should adopt the famous approach associated with the maxim: “My country, right or wrong.” But in looking up the origins of that statement, I find that both of those to whom it is usually attributed acknowledged that “my country” might be wrong, but it remains “my country.” <a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/my_country,_right_or_wrong">The second of the two versions,</a> attributed to &nbsp;U.S. Sen. Carl Schurz (R-Missouri) in 1872, goes like this: “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”</p><p dir="ltr">That works a lot better does it not?</p><h4 dir="ltr">Obama's words</h4><p dir="ltr">The second case (which is closely associated with the first and which Giuliani philosophized about during his non-apology tour) is the question of why Obama refuses to say that the Islamic State group (hereafter ISIS) — or Al Qaeda before it — should be referred to as “Islamic terrorists.”</p><p dir="ltr">Obama routinely goes out of his way to separate his denunciations of these murderous groups from references to their Muslim identity or to Islam, the religion in the name of which these groups routinely justify their actions. Obama’s preferred term is “radical extremism,” which, if you look at it closely by itself, is two words that mean practically the same thing and say almost nothing specific.</p><p dir="ltr">Republicans have been complaining that he ought to call them “Muslim (or Islamic) terrorists.” They say that’s more accurate. I can’t really disagree, although, like most two-word buzzphrases, it raises more questions than it answers. Still, their objection is not really about accuracy. It’s just another way of calling Obama a politically correct weenie.</p><p dir="ltr">The reason Obama prefers a vague term, especially versus one that mentions Islam or Muslims, is obvious. It hurts the feelings of Muslims and makes them feel disrespected and makes them fear that they will become targets.</p><p dir="ltr">On the other hand, on Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” during a discussion of these word choices, NBC played tape of former President George W. Bush and even the neocon hero Vice President Dick Cheney using almost exactly the same language. As in:</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>Obama:</strong> “We are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam.”</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>Obama:</strong> “All of us recognize that this great religion in the hands of a few extremists has been distorted to justify violence towards innocent people that is never justified.”</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>George W. Bush:</strong> “All Americans must recognize that the face of terror is not the true face of Islam.”</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>Bush:</strong> “That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace.”</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>Dick Cheney:</strong> “This is, by no means, a war against Islam.”</p><p dir="ltr">It would be, shall we say, interesting to know whether anyone who is now complaining that Obama shrinks from linking the terror to Islam made the same complaints against Bush and Cheney.</p><p dir="ltr">When moderator Chuck Todd turned to columnist Michael Gerson, who worked in the Bush White House, to comment on the high level of rhetorical overlap, Gerson replied:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“You are right. There is a remarkable consistency between the previous administration and this one, and for a certain reason. Because the rhetorical saying we want is free people against violent extremists, not a war of civilizations or a war of religion…. And any future president will do this. I promise. You have Muslim allies in the war on terror. You can't alienate them, you know, the Jordanians or the Turks or others. These are important allies. And your language matters.”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">Well of course that’s true, and of course it is most or all of the reason that Bush, Cheney and Obama said those things. But on another level this is also just another example of how comfortable we have become with the idea that none of these guys say what they mean and that some kind of message marketing logic explains what they do say.</p><p dir="ltr">The idea that Obama is going to explain the true message of Islam — not only us but to the Muslim world — and differentiate this message from the errant version of those who have “perverted” or “distorted” it is pretty funny.</p><p dir="ltr">But there’s another problem. Over the weekend, I read this really enlightening but scary piece in the Atlantic by Graeme Wood titled <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/">“What ISIS Really Wants.”</a></p><p dir="ltr">Wood is steeped in Islamic doctrine. If you read his long, fairly frightening piece, you may conclude that there is a solid basis in Islamic holy writings and tradition for the ISIS idea of seizing territory, appointing a Caliph who comes from the proper holy tribe of Islam, and calling on true followers of the Prophet to flock to the caliphate and fight.</p><p dir="ltr">That’s not to say that ISIS stands for the one true interpretation of the prophet’s message. As Wood writes,</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“Many mainstream Muslim organizations have gone so far as to say the Islamic State is, in fact, <strong><em>un-Islamic</em></strong>. It is, of course, reassuring to know that the vast majority of Muslims have zero interest in replacing Hollywood movies with public executions as evening entertainment.</p><p dir="ltr">“But Muslims who call the Islamic State un-Islamic are typically, as the Princeton scholar Bernard Haykel, the leading expert on the group’s theology, told me, ‘embarrassed and politically correct, with a cotton-candy view of their own religion’ that neglects ‘what their religion has historically and legally required.’ Many denials of the Islamic State’s religious nature, he said, are rooted in an ‘interfaith-Christian-nonsense tradition.’ ”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">He also writes that:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;" dir="ltr">“Virtually every major decision and law promulgated by the Islamic State adheres to what it calls, in its press and pronouncements, and on its billboards, license plates, stationery, and coins, ‘the Prophetic methodology,’ which means following the prophecy and example of Muhammad, in punctilious detail. Muslims can reject the Islamic State; nearly all do. But pretending that it isn’t actually a religious, millenarian group, with theology that must be understood to be combatted, has already led the United States to underestimate it and back foolish schemes to counter it. We’ll need to get acquainted with the Islamic State’s intellectual genealogy if we are to react in a way that will not strengthen it, but instead help it self-immolate in its own excessive zeal.”</p><p dir="ltr"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--></p><p class="MsoNormal"><strong>Late-breaking additions</strong></p><p class="MsoNormal">Giuliani has an <a href="A%20couple%20of%20late-breaking%20additions:%20Giuliani%20">op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal, </a>which amounts to a non-takeback takeback. (Warning, non-subscribers may not be able to access the full piece.)&nbsp; It begins:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;" class="MsoNormal">"There has been no shortage of news coverage—and criticism—regarding comments I made about President Obama at a political gathering last week in New York. My blunt language suggesting that the president doesn’t love America notwithstanding, I didn’t intend to question President Obama’s motives or the content of his heart."</p><p dir="ltr">It's a little hard to reconcile that with a blunt statement that Obama doesn't love America and doesn't think America is "exceptional," but Giuliani would like to shift the frame to friendly advice about how Obama needs to speak differently “in a way that draws sharp, clear distinctions between us and those who threaten our way of life.”</p><p dir="ltr">Also, after I posted the early version of this piece I found that Washington Post Fact-Checker Glenn Kessler had taken Giuliani's statements about all the nice things about America that Obama doesn't say and found a lot of places where Obama said exactly those things, for example specifying on many occasions that he loves America and that he views it as exceptional. He gave Giuliani's statements "four Pinocchios" which translates as "totally false."</p><div style="overflow: hidden; color: #000000; background-color: #ffffff; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><br /><br /></div>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/02/fighting-words-scrutinizing-dust-ups-over-statements-giuliani-and-obama#commentsBarack ObamaMediaNationBusinessWorldGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNDick CheneyGeorge W. BushISILISISMeet the PressRudy GiulianiMon, 23 Feb 2015 15:05:03 +0000Eric Black91129 at http://www.minnpost.comRevisionist history: Jeb Bush on ‘mistakes’ in Iraqhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/02/revisionist-history-jeb-bush-mistakes-iraq
<p dir="ltr">Returning to Jeb Bush’s <a href="http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/02/jeb-bush-s-review-our-role-mideast-omits-big-event">coming out party on foreign policy</a>, one of the big media memes heading into the event was how he would deal with the family legacy. Arguably, his older brother’s decision to bomb, invade, occupy and then “democratize” Iraq in 2003 was the key event that triggered the destabilization of the region, with (mostly unpleasant) consequences leading up to the present moment.</p><p dir="ltr">This might be all the more tragic since the Iraq War was sold to the public on the suspicion that Saddam Hussein was hiding or developing chemical, biological and nuclear “weapons of mass destruction,” which turned out to be false.</p><p dir="ltr">Jeb Bush had his sound bite ready and he delivered it likably, thus: &nbsp;</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“As you might know, I've also been fortunate to have a father and a brother who helped shape America's foreign-policy from the Oval Office. I recognize that as a result my views will often be held up in comparison to theirs. In fact, this is a great, fascinating thing in the political world for some reason. Sometimes in contrast to their views. Look, just for the record, one more time, I love my brother, I love my dad, I actually love my mother as well, hope that's OK. And I admire their service to the nation and the difficult decisions that they had to make, but I'm my own man, and my views are shaped by my own thinking and my own experiences.”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">It worked. The aside about loving his mother got a laugh. He got the headline he wanted from at least USA Today (“Jeb Bush vows to be 'my own man' on foreign affairs”), and having said absolutely nothing about how he agreed with or differed from his Bushian predecessors, he moved on.</p><p dir="ltr">Later, during the question and answer period, he returned to the Iraq question and acknowledged that “mistakes were made in Iraq,” although it turned out that his brother’s only mistake was listening to the CIA in 2002-03, whereas the more serious mistake was made by President Obama’s with his decision to remove the U.S. troops in 2011. Here’s what Jeb Bush said:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“Well, let's — let's go to Iraq. There were mistakes made in Iraq, for sure.<br class="kix-line-break" /><br class="kix-line-break" />“Using the intelligence capability that everybody embraced about weapons of mass destruction was not — turns out not to be accurate. Not creating an environment of security after the successful taking out of [Saddam] Hussein was a mistake, because Iraqis wanted security most — you know, more than anything else.<br class="kix-line-break" /><br class="kix-line-break" />“But my brother's administration, through the surge, which was one of the most heroic acts of courage politically that — that any president's done, because there was no support for this. And it was hugely successful. And it created the stability that when the new president came in, he could've built on to create a fragile but more stable situation that would've not allowed for the void to be filled. The void has been filled, because we created the void.<br class="kix-line-break" /><br class="kix-line-break" />“And so the lesson, I think, is engagement. Whether it's always the United States, that's another subject. I don't think it has to be. But when you — when you have a failed state or a weak state and you leave, the first thing that — that happened was Maliki turned to — because it was — it was fragile — who did he turn to? He turned to Iran. And Iran's influence now has replaced the United States in a significant way.”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">This is the current received neoconservative version. The “surge” worked and everything would’ve been fine if Obama hadn’t withdrawn U.S. troops a mere eight years after they got there.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Disastrous choice of Maliki</h4><p dir="ltr">This version under-emphasizes a few things. The rise of the Islamic State and especially its breathtakingly easy conquest of a big chunk of Iraq owes much to alienation of Iraq’s Sunni minority from post-Saddam Iraq, which owes much to <a href="http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/04/dexter-filkins-offers-breathtaking-reporting-maliki-and-thugocracy-iraq">the disastrous choice, by the George W. Bush administration, of the thug Nouri al-Maliki to run the country</a> in 2006. That’s the Iraqi partner Obama inherited from W.</p><p dir="ltr">Jeb Bush blames Obama for allowing Maliki to “turn to Iran” but doesn’t mention that Maliki, the man his brother put in charge of Iraq, had recently <em>lived in Iran for seven years.</em></p><p dir="ltr">But before there was Maliki or Obama, there was the fateful 2002-2003 decision of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to start this war of choice. It was justified on the argument (among others) that it would lead to a flowering of democracy in the Mideast, but even moreso on the argument that Saddam Hussein was hiding chemical and biological weapons and building a nuclear bomb.</p><p dir="ltr">And, Jeb Bush says, his brother’s mistake was relying on “the intelligence capability that everybody embraced about weapons of mass destruction” that “turned out not to be accurate.” I don’t know what country Jeb Bush was in during the run-up to the Iraq war, but in the United States, the CIA evidence that Saddam was hiding WMD and making nukes was hardly “embraced” by “everybody.”</p><p dir="ltr">There is a strong case to be made, and it was made at the time, that the intelligence community cooked up exactly the “evidence” that Bush and Cheney wanted to justify the invasion. But that’s not my hang-up nor my reason for this post.</p><p dir="ltr">To me, the best evidence that Saddam Hussein was hiding something was the fact that he wouldn’t allow U.N. weapons inspectors the kind of unfettered access they needed to certify that he wasn’t hiding anything. Saddam claimed to be in compliance with the U.N. resolutions that required him to destroy his chemical and biological weapons. (In fact, it turns out, he <em>was</em> in compliance.) But as long as he refused to allow inspectors in to confirm that fact, it seemed reasonable to be skeptical.</p><p dir="ltr">Which brings us to the biggest problem with Jeb’s statement about the intelligence that merely “turn[ed] out not to be accurate.”</p><h4 dir="ltr">Saddam had relented</h4><p dir="ltr">Before the days of “shock and awe” that began the war, Saddam finally relented and allowed the U.N. inspectors to come back into Iraq, to look wherever they wanted with no advance notice. The United States had been saying (as in Secretary of State Colin Powell’s famous U.N. speech) that America knew what illegal weapons Saddam possessed and where they were hidden. Shortly before George W. Bush started the war, the U.N. inspectors had prompt access to all those sites. They found no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.</p><p dir="ltr">The head of the U.N. inspections team, Hans Blix of Sweden, told the United States and the United Nations that he was getting excellent cooperation from the Iraqis at that point. His only complaint was that the Iraqis couldn't produce documentation that they had destroyed all the weapons they had previously been known to possess. He asked for a little while longer to finish their work.</p><p dir="ltr">But at that point, the American side had lost interest in whether or not there were WMD hidden in Iraq. Blix and his inspectors had to be evacuated so they would not be killed by U.S. bombs.</p><p>If Jeb Bush wants to say that one of the key “mistakes” that led to the Iraq war was that “the intelligence capability that everybody embraced about weapons of mass destruction was not — turns out not to be accurate” he should explain why the war started even though the intelligence had just been shown to be inaccurate.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/02/revisionist-history-jeb-bush-mistakes-iraq#commentsBarack ObamaNationWorldGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNelection 2016George W. BushIraqJeb BushFri, 20 Feb 2015 15:13:09 +0000Eric Black91105 at http://www.minnpost.comJeb Bush’s review of our role in the Mideast omits a big eventhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/02/jeb-bush-s-review-our-role-mideast-omits-big-event
<p dir="ltr">Undeclared presidential candidate Jeb Bush spoke in Chicago Wednesday, outlining the arguments he will make, mostly about foreign policy, after he formally enters the race.</p><p dir="ltr">Compared to some of the craziness we will hear from some of the other candidates, Bush came across as sane and measured. He clearly would associate himself with the chief complaints that righties have employed against President Obama’s conduct of foreign policy — that Obama is weak, vacillating, “feckless” is a favorite word, and even that Obama doesn’t believe that the United States is an unmitigated and unselfish force for good in the world. But he kept it dignified.</p><p dir="ltr">Bush won’t literally be running against Obama, who has a Constitutional excuse not to seek a third term, but if Bush makes it to the general election he will likely face a former Obamian secretary of state, so dissecting Obama’s alleged foreign policy failures will be relevant.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Nothing concrete</h4><p dir="ltr">Bush owes us a clearer outline of what he would do differently. As of Wednesday, he committed himself to nothing very concrete but implied that he has ways of reducing the chaos in the Mideast.</p><p dir="ltr">In outlining a return to proper American conduct, Bush certainly hewed to the self-serving, Manichean view that U.S. political rhetoric generally embraces to convert the complicated century-plus track record of U.S. domination of smaller powers into a simple tale of freedom and democracy versus dictatorship and oppression.</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“In the post-World War II era, [Bush said Wednesday without anyone acting surprised] the United States has helped hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, secured liberty for an equal number, and has been a force for peace and security. This has happened because our presidents, both Republican and Democrats, have accepted the responsibilities of American power in the world with the belief that we are a force for good. I have doubts whether this administration believes American power is such a force.”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">That last line borders on slander per se, although it may also contain a grain of truth. Obama has at times seemed to differ from other presidents in his assumptions about the unarguable “force for goodness” of every U.S. invasion or bombing attack, and that drives some of his critics slightly nuts.</p><p dir="ltr">Here’s an example, which I’ve cited before, but which is freshened up by Bush’s treatment Wednesday. (You’ll see in the excerpt below that Bush made a momentary slip of the tongue, saying “Iraq” when he meant “Iran,” which some are tongue-clucking over, but I am not. I’m going to a different place). Said Bush in Chicago:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“We've had 35 years of experience with Iraq — excuse me — Iran — 35 years experience with Iran's rulers. They have attacked the United States and American troops directly and through their surrogates. They have used terror as a tool of intimidation.”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">During those 35 years, I would note, the United States also attacked Iran, as when the Reagan administration armed and sided with Saddam Hussein during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war. But that’s not my main point in this passage.</p><p dir="ltr">Why choose to start the history of U.S.-Iranian relations 35 years ago? That was the year religion-crazed Iranian mobs overthrew the Shah of Iran, who had run the country under U.S. protection and in accordance with U.S. policy for the preceding 26 years? Sure, it’s nice to have friends running important countries, and even nicer when they produce a lot of oil, although a little less nice when you fancy yourself the global arsenal of democracy and you cozy up to a monarch, just as the United States has done before and since with the nearby monarchies of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, etc.</p><p dir="ltr">Siding with monarchies is not the best feature of our “force for good” and “arsenal of democracy” pitch, even worse when then monarchies (like the Saudis) impose laws that led to the public flogging of bloggers.</p><h4 dir="ltr">What happened in Iran</h4><p dir="ltr">But the case of Iran is much, much worse than the U.S. willingness to cozy up (<a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2277">and really much more than cozy up</a>) to an unelected monarch. That’s &nbsp;nothing. The United States, via the CIA and other assets, actually overthrew the only truly democratic government that ever held power in Iran. That was the elected government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, who was Time magazine’s “Man of the Year” in 1952 and who had committed the unpardonable sin of nationalizing Iran’s oil and attempting to use the revenues from the sale of that oil for the benefit of the Iranian people.</p><p dir="ltr">I’ve written the story of that CIA-orchestrated coup before,<a href="http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2009/06/obama-michael-medved-and-cia-overthrow-democracy-iran"> including here</a>. But it's impressive how seldom the story makes into any general public discussion of the history of U.S.-Iranian relations.</p><p dir="ltr">No one can with certainty say that, absent that U.S.-organized coup, Iran would have developed into the model of a democracy in a Mideast Muslim country that would have changed everything. No one can say that it wouldn’t have. The Shah was not a monster on the Saddam Hussein level, but employed secret police and tortured his critics and Iranians knew that he worked for the Americans.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">So Jeb Bush has decided to start his review of U.S.-Iranian relations after the United States helped snuff out the only brief outbreak of democracy in Iran’s history and after the U.S. ally who replaced that democratic government had been overthrown, and he finds it to be a tale of good Americans and evil Mideasterners.</p><p dir="ltr">No U.S. president ever publicly mentioned the U.S. role in overthrowing Mossadegh until Obama, during his first year as president, on a trip to Egypt said:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">"For many years, Iran has defined itself in part by its opposition to my country, and there is, in fact, a tumultuous history between us.&nbsp;In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government.&nbsp;Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians."&nbsp;</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">So yeah, I guess it’s true as Jeb Bush suggests, that Obama doesn’t hew as closely to the traditional all-party line about the United States as an unflagging defender of peace and spreader of democracy.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/02/jeb-bush-s-review-our-role-mideast-omits-big-event#commentsBarack ObamaNationWorldGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNelection 2016Jeb BushThu, 19 Feb 2015 16:11:50 +0000Eric Black91094 at http://www.minnpost.comJudging the Supreme Court: More harm than good, says prominent legal scholarhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/02/judging-supreme-court-more-harm-good-says-prominent-legal-scholar
<div class="image float-right"><img class="imagecache-article_detail" src="/sites/default/files/imagecache/article_detail/ErwinChemerinsky225.jpg" alt="Erwin Chemerinsky" title="Erwin Chemerinsky" /><div class="credit">University of California Irvine</div><div class="caption">Erwin Chemerinsky</div></div><p dir="ltr">U.S Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Sonia Sotomayor should be “ashamed of themselves,” legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky told a St. Paul audience Monday night.</p><p dir="ltr">At his confirmation hearing, Roberts likened the job of a justice to that of a baseball umpire, calling balls and strikes, Chemerinsky reminded the audience. Sotomayor said at her confirmation hearing justices don’t “make law,” they just “apply” law.</p><p dir="ltr">Chemerinsky, dean of the Law School at the University of California at Irvine, said those justices and others who made similar claims throughout U.S. legal history were misleading the public, and reinforcing the widely held idea that the role of the Supreme Court is merely to “divine” the correct meaning of the U.S. Constitution. It’s a popular belief, he said, but at some level “we all know better.”</p><p dir="ltr">Chemerinsky is a liberal. He calls the Citizens United ruling (which opened the door to almost unlimited campaign contributions) one of the worst in history. His previous book was called “The Conservative Assault on the Supreme Court.”</p><div class="float-left"><div class="minnpost-ads-ad minnpost-ads-ad-Middle "><script type="text/javascript">OAS_AD("Middle");</script></div></div><p dir="ltr">But his latest book, “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0670026425/?tag=slatmaga-20">The Case Against the Supreme Court</a>,” is not (or is more than) a liberal attack on the work of the Roberts court (as he signals by including liberal Justice Sotomayor in the denunciation above). Chemerinsky is arguing that:</p><p dir="ltr">a) The Supreme Court has been, on balance, a more negative than positive influence on our country throughout its history, and</p><p dir="ltr">b) The idea that justices bring neutral, objective legal principles to the task of “divining” the true meaning and purpose of the language in the statutes and the Constitution is bunk.</p><p dir="ltr">On the contrary to b) above, says Chemerinsky:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“We should all admit that this is an emperor that has no clothes… The judges of the Supreme Court have tremendous discretion – discretion in interpreting the open-ended language of the Constitution…</p><p dir="ltr">We should recognize what the Supreme Court is doing, day in and day out, is making value choices. And we should make them accountable for those value choices.”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">Chemerinsky spoke last night at Hamline Law School in an annual endowed lecture named for David Cobin, a former professor at the Hamline school who died in 2011.</p><p dir="ltr">Chemerinsky reviewed many of the most famous awful Supreme Court decisions:</p><ul><li>Like Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld racially segregated public accommodations from 1896 to 1954 and was the legal basis for the legality of the Jim Crow south;</li></ul><ul><li>Like the Korematsu ruling that authorized <a href="http://listverse.com/2014/10/25/10-shameful-truths-about-japanese-american-internment/">the imprisonment of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans</a> during World War II, not a single one of whom, Chemerinsky said, was ever charged with an act of treason;</li></ul><ul><li>Or the court ruling that upheld a long prison sentence for socialist Eugene Debs for telling an audience of young men during World War I that “You need at this time especially to know that you are fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder.” If the First Amendment doesn’t protect the right of an opponent of government policy, including the policy of entering the war, what good is it? Chemerinsky asked.</li></ul><p dir="ltr">For years, Chemerinsky said, he had taught these cases, which are all understood in retrospect to have been miscarriages of justice, as if they were anomalies. But by explaining them that way, he said, “I realized I had been making excuses for the Supreme Court.”</p><p dir="ltr">These cases were not really so much the exceptions, as the rule, he decided. &nbsp;</p><h4 dir="ltr">Protecting minority rights</h4><p dir="ltr">If there’s any excuse in a democracy to allow unelected judges to overrule elected representatives, it should be to protect minority rights. The majority can protect itself by electing those with whom it agrees. But “the court exists to protect the rights of minorities.”</p><p dir="ltr">But, in broad overview, he argued, the Supreme Court has done a terrible job of protecting minorities, the poor and the defenseless. From 1789 to 1865, in roughly 100 percent of cases affecting slavery, the Supreme Court “aggressively protected the rights of slave-owners,” Chemerinsky said, but never once ruled in favor of the rights of slaves.</p><p dir="ltr">From 1896 (the date of the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling) until 1954 (the date of the Brown vs. the Board of Education ruling), the court enforced the spurious doctrine of “separate but equal,” which amounted to enforcing the preference of the powerful over the powerless. And as recently as 2013, the court struck down key provisions of the Voting Rights Act, which he estimated had jeopardized the voting rights of about 600,000 Americans, almost all of them African-Americans or Hispanic. &nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">When he lets loose this denunciation of the Supreme Court’s failure to protect the powerless, his students always bring up the Warren court of the 1950s and 1960s, which delivered many decisions upholding the rights of the powerless. Yes, he tells them, the Warren court “did a lot of good.” But not as much as they should have. The Brown ruling ordered that separate segregated school systems be dismantled with “all deliberate speed,” a weird oxymoron that allowed the status quo ante to continue for many more years.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Brutal case</h4><p dir="ltr">I’ve written about Supreme Court jurisdiction fairly often over the years, and was familiar with most of the cases Chemerinsky cited, although I had seldom been exposed to such a wide-ranging, overall indictment of the court’s overall effect. But Chemerinsky did talk about some cases that were new to me, including this one, with which he opened his talk. (It’s fairly brutal so you might want to stop reading here.)</p><p dir="ltr">Carrie Buck, a Virginia teenager, was raised by a foster family in 1920s Virginia. She was raped and impregnated by a nephew of her foster mother. Blamed for her pregnancy, she was committed in 1924 into a hospital for the “feeble-minded,” where the superintendent sought to have her sterilized, against her wishes. Her guardian started a lawsuit to block the procedure which ended up going to the U.S. Supreme Court, which, by a vote of 8-1, upheld the Virginia law allowing the sterilization to proceed. The majority opinion, by the famous and generally admired Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., concluded that "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."</p><p dir="ltr">Buck eventually left the hospital, was married (but could have no further children) and lived a long life that showed little evidence of feeble-mindedness. Her daughter (the product of the rape for which her mother was blamed and presumably representing the third of the three generations of imbeciles to which Justice Holmes referred) was an honor roll student the year before she died of measles.</p><p dir="ltr">In his book, Chemerinsky outlined several reforms that he suggests would move things in the right direction. For example:</p><ul><li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr">Presidents should employ a merit selection process to screen potential Supreme Court nominees. (President Jimmy Carter did utilize such a panel for lower-level federal judicial appointments.) &nbsp;</p></li><li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr">All public proceedings of the Supreme Court should be televised. (Given the amount of power the justices have over our lives, the public should be able to watch them work.)</p></li><li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr">Ethical rules that apply to lower-level judges should apply to the Supreme Court. (Currently it is entirely up to each justice to decide whether, for example, he or she has a conflict of interest that requires recusal.)</p></li><li dir="ltr">Justices should serve for a single, non-renewable 18-year term. (This one would require a constitutional amendment, which Chemerinsky acknowledged makes it highly unlikely. But given the combination of the tendency to appoint younger judges and the rises in life expectancy, the potential becomes likely for justices to serve many decades, which Chemerinsky called “too much power for one individual to hold for too long.” If Justice Clarence Thomas, who was nominated at age 43, retires at age 90, as Justice John Paul Stevens recently did, Thomas will have been on the bench 47 years. Chemerinsky also said the regular rotation and fixed terms would reduce the level of flukiness that allows one president to appoint many justices while another may appoint none at all.)</li></ul>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/02/judging-supreme-court-more-harm-good-says-prominent-legal-scholar#commentsCongressNationCourtsSt. PaulGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNCitizens UnitedClarence ThomasJohn RobertsSonia SotomayorU.S. Supreme CourtTue, 17 Feb 2015 15:25:44 +0000Eric Black91059 at http://www.minnpost.comBreaking news: Media shatters the record for too-early obsession with presidential racehttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/02/breaking-news-media-shatters-record-too-early-obsession-presidential-race
<p dir="ltr">Thank you Dan Balz.</p><p dir="ltr">Balz of the Washington Post and one of the senior members of the national political press corps wrote a piece for the Sunday Post headlined<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/its-2015-not-2016-the-presidential-races-wont-be-decided-today/2015/02/14/40488262-b457-11e4-bf39-5560f3918d4b_story.html?tid=hpModule_f8335a3c-868c-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394&amp;hpid=z10">: “It’s 2015, not 2016: The presidential races won’t be decided today.”</a> Of course that was yesterday. There are probably fresh poll numbers out since that story ran.</p><p dir="ltr">I don’t have data at hand, but there’s simply no doubt that the media mob has broken the record, and by a wide margin, for the earliest total daily obsession with the next presidential race. In the race for the Republican nomination, there is no frontrunner, so it’s safe to absurdly declare that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is the frontrunner because, although he is polling in the teens, he is — in Iowa — a couple of percentage points ahead of someone else, whose flavor of the month moment lies ahead. (That, by the way, was not a prediction that Walker will or won’t be the nominee or the next president. I don’t know and you don’t know and neither does anyone else.)</p><p dir="ltr">And, by the way, in case I haven’t mentioned it for a few days, how absurd is it that Iowa holds this permanent special status in the process?</p><p dir="ltr">Meanwhile, the actual holders of various national political office are facing some fairly weighty matters, and are showing few signs that they can deal with them rationally.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/02/breaking-news-media-shatters-record-too-early-obsession-presidential-race#commentsMediaNationBusinessGeographyPoliticsINNelection 2016Mon, 16 Feb 2015 15:01:46 +0000Eric Black91036 at http://www.minnpost.comWar powers proposal does little to restore original constitutional balancehttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/02/war-powers-proposal-does-little-restore-original-constitutional-balance
<p dir="ltr">I’m glad President Obama has decided to seek a congressional vote authorizing the ongoing U.S. military activity against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. But it is less than a half-step, more of baby step, toward respecting the now-almost-non-existent constitutional provisions on how the United States is supposed decide whether and when to wage war.</p><p dir="ltr">One of the Article I, Section 8 powers granted to Congress by the U.S. Constitution is the “power to declare war.” One of the roles of the president is to “be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.”</p><p dir="ltr">This reflected a now-quaint understanding that the United States would mostly be at peace with the world but would occasionally decide to go to war. That decision would be up to Congress but once the war was declared and the Army and Navy and the state militias were mobilized, the president/commander in chief would be in charge of leading the war effort until peace was restored.</p><p dir="ltr">For decades now, the United States has never been truly at peace. Congress hasn’t literally “declared war” since 1941. But the “authorization for the use of military force” (AUMF) seems close enough to a declaration of war as not to flout the Constitution. Both the response to the 9/11 attack of 2001 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq (authorized by Congress in 2002) were the subject of AUMFs.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Commander-in-chief powers</h4><p dir="ltr">Since World War II at least (and really before that) presidents have asserted that their commander-in-chief powers include the right to use military (or covert) force anywhere they feel it is necessary or even just advantageous. Sometimes they seek congressional approval in advance, often not. And they generally do so only when they have calculated that the approval will be granted. There’s really no way to reconcile this arrangement with the original constitutional vision, but the U.S. Supreme Court has been unwilling to impose the original arrangement on any president.</p><p dir="ltr">Obama has taught constitutional law and surely understands all this much better than I do. He also, as president, inherited two still-running AUMFs, one for Iraq and one against terrorism.</p><p dir="ltr">In <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/videos/#134333">announcing his proposal of an AUMF</a> to authorize what the United States is already doing to “degrade and ultimately defeat” the Islamic State, he did not restore the original constitutional arrangement. But the proposal, which will soon be debated by congressional committees, contains several features that strike me as a healthy step in that direction.</p><p dir="ltr">For starters, in his announcement, he said: “I do not believe this nation’s interest are served by endless war or by remaining on a perpetual war footing.” Wow.</p><p dir="ltr">He specified that the authorization for which he is asking would replace the open-ended 2002 authorization to invade Iraq, so in a sense, it is a net reduction in the kind of military authority the Oval Office now possesses.</p><p dir="ltr">Rather than seeking a broad, open-ended grant of war power, Obama’s proposed AUMF “does not authorize the use of the United States Armed Forces in enduring offensive ground combat operations.”</p><p dir="ltr">He proposes that the new AUMF expire in three years. Traditionally, AUMFs have no expiration date and have often been used to justify actions many years later that were clearly not envisioned at the time of the original vote. (Think <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_Resolution">Gulf of Tonkin resolution</a>.)</p><h4 dir="ltr">Mini debate</h4><p dir="ltr">PBS’ “NewsHour” put the proposal up for a mini-debate between two senators, Republican Deb Fischer of Nebraska and Democrat Tim Kaine of Virginia, both members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that will be reviewing the proposed AUMF. Their reactions were polite, but their differences were not too subtle.</p><p dir="ltr">Fischer thought the proposed language, for example, the explicit rejection of “enduring offensive ground operations,” and the decision to build a three-year expiration date into the AUMF were unwise.</p><p dir="ltr">Kaine felt the opposite on those two points. He seemed worried that language like no “enduring offensive ground operations” was too slippery and wouldn’t really ban anything, since ground operations could be deemed either not “offensive” or not “enduring.”</p><p dir="ltr">Fischer said the three-year expiration date would “limit the next president of the United States.”</p><p dir="ltr">Kaine felt the “sunset” provision was an excellent idea: “It doesn’t mean that operations finish. It just means that a president has to come back to Congress.”</p><p dir="ltr">In rolling out the AUMF, Obama had said explicitly that the three-year time limit was inserted so that the next president and the next Congress would have to “revisit the question at the beginning of the next president’s term.”</p><p dir="ltr">Kaine, sounding skeptical about some aspects of the proposal, said he nonetheless believes that some version of the authorization will pass because there is widespread support for action against ISIS. Fischer made no prediction, saying she would wait to see what happened and what came to light during the committee hearings.</p><p dir="ltr">To return to my statement at the top that this proposed resolution does little to restore the original constitutional balance, bear in mind that if the resolution goes nowhere, nothing will change unless the president decides, under his commander-in-chief powers, to do more, less or something different.</p><p dir="ltr">The <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/02/11/obamas-request-for-congressional-authorization-to-fight-the-islamic-state-full-text/">full text of the proposed resolution is here</a>.</p><p dir="ltr">The full Fischer/Kaine <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/videos/#134378">discussion is here</a>.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/02/war-powers-proposal-does-little-restore-original-constitutional-balance#commentsArmed ForcesBarack ObamaCongressNationGeographyPoliticsINNImperfect Union: Constitutional Roots of the Mess We’re InFri, 13 Feb 2015 14:40:33 +0000Eric Black91012 at http://www.minnpost.comHow do U.S. and European voters differ? The three Gshttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/02/how-do-us-and-european-voters-differ-three-gs
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="500" scrolling="no" src="http://player.theplatform.com/p/2E2eJC/nbcNewsOffsite?guid=mtp_panelvaccine_150208" width="635"></iframe></p><p dir="ltr">The panel on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” was discussing the brouhaha over Chris Christie and Rand Paul arguing against mandatory vaccination, and of course the conversation included the idea that this was to some extent an expression of the fundamental distrust and resentment of government in a significant portion of the American electorate.</p><p dir="ltr">Host Chuck Todd asked panelist Katty Kay (a Brit who has been based in the United States and anchors the news on BBC America) whether this was one of the key differences between American and European voters. She said it was one of three elements of difference that she calls “the three Gs.”</p><p>Kay: “The big divide is god, guns and government. The three Gs… We [meaning Europeans generally] are much more secular.&nbsp;We are much more prone to liking government.&nbsp;And we cannot understand the gun culture in this country.&nbsp;And that's really what divides us."</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/02/how-do-us-and-european-voters-differ-three-gs#commentsNationWorldGeographyPoliticsINNChris ChristieMeet the PressRand PaulMon, 09 Feb 2015 14:54:25 +0000Eric Black90955 at http://www.minnpost.comWhen it comes to Obama’s foreign policy, words matterhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/02/when-it-comes-obama-s-foreign-policy-words-matter
<p dir="ltr">Words matter. Like “desire” and “need.”</p><p dir="ltr">Last week, the White House unveiled a 29-page document updating the Obama administration’s thinking on national security strategy. It contained such vague, anodyne, but (to me) relatively sane statements as:</p><p dir="ltr">“The United States will always defend our interests and uphold our commitments to allies and partners. But we have to make hard choices among many competing priorities and we must always resist the over-reach that comes when we make decisions based upon fear."</p><p dir="ltr">To tell you the truth, I’m pretty sick of presidents using the phrase “defend our interests” without saying enough about what that means, especially since it often means killing people in foreign countries for reasons that aren’t particularly in the interests of average Americans. But the main thrust of the paragraph is mostly a restatement of Obama’s famous foreign-policy doctrine known as “don’t do stupid stuff.”</p><p dir="ltr">The United States, Obama said, must not try to “dictate the trajectory of all unfolding events around the world.”</p><p dir="ltr">To the permanent hawk wing of the foreign- and military-policy spectrum, that may come across as just yellow-bellied reluctance to, well, to dictate the trajectory of events around the world.</p><p dir="ltr">Fine. Let them say so and make their case, and let journalists quote them and hold them accountable for what they say on the slight chance that the next war they stampede us into might not work out so well in the end.</p><p dir="ltr">But I happened to read about the new Obama administration paper in an <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_27477917/obama-cautions-against-overreach-security-strategy?source=infinite">Associated Press report</a> in which AP White House correspondent Julie Pace didn’t call John McCain or Lindsey Graham to get that quote. Instead, she just threw in this paragraph:</p><p dir="ltr">“Obama's critics have accused him of putting <em>his desire to keep the U.S. out of overseas</em> <em>conflicts</em> ahead of <em>the need for more robust action</em> against the world's bad actors.” (Emphasis added.)</p><p dir="ltr">We see constant evidence that politicians have adopted words that have been tested to pack a punch, especially among whichever groups of voters they seek to persuade. But hard-news reporters are supposed to use plain language, designed only to inform and to avoid word choices that amount to editorializing.</p><p>So why is Obama’s reluctance to get into more conflicts a “desire” whereas the trigger-happy policy of critics is a “need” to bomb?</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/02/when-it-comes-obama-s-foreign-policy-words-matter#commentsArmed ForcesBarack ObamaMediaNationBusinessGeographyPoliticsINNMon, 09 Feb 2015 14:47:14 +0000Eric Black90954 at http://www.minnpost.comRomney won't run for president in 2016http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/romney-wont-run-president-2016
<p>Mitt Romney told his inner circle that he has decided not to run for president in 2016. He hasn't made a public statement but word of his decision is flying around. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/31/us/mitt-romney-2016-presidential-election.html?emc=edit_na_20150130&amp;nlid=54115655&amp;_r=0">Here's the New York Times version</a>.</p><p>Romney made the decision, which he didn't quite say was final and unalterable, after consultations with his top advisors. Here's how that went, according to the Times:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;" class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="260" data-total-count="2105" itemprop="articleBody">In a more than four-hour meeting last week, Mr. Romney’s top staff members and trusted advisers from 2012 relayed a sobering reality — they supported Mr. Romney and thought he would be the best president, but they did not necessarily encourage a third run.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;" class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="387" data-total-count="2492" itemprop="articleBody">One by one, loyal supporters talked about surveying their troops from 2012, and finding that the enthusiasm and support were just not there. Some Iowa precinct leaders were not coming back, and even in New Hampshire — where Mr. Romney had won the primary — the mood was described at best as “cautiously optimistic.” The situation with donors was also going to be an uphill climb.</p><p>This strikes me as good news for Romney and his family, and also for Jeb Bush who will be that much closer to being the consensus choice of the establishment wing of the Republican Party.</p><p></p><p></p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/romney-wont-run-president-2016#commentsFri, 30 Jan 2015 17:02:49 +0000Eric Black90857 at http://www.minnpost.comDemocrats seek a message to messagehttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/democrats-seek-message-message
<p>From <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-democrats-retake-the-house-its-a-long-shot-but-theyre-getting-ready-to-try/2015/01/28/ae2f8068-a639-11e4-a7c2-03d37af98440_story.html">a story in today's Washington Post </a>about Democrats longshot hopes of taking back majority control of the House:</p><blockquote><p style="padding-left: 30px;">“Our message cannot be a bunch of Democrats running around saying we have no message. That’s not a good message,” said Rep. Steve Israel (N.Y.), the caucus’s newly anointed message man. “It’s time to get in a room and do a robust analysis of what message works and just start messaging it.”</p></blockquote><p style="padding-left: 30px;">With a newly appointed message man messaging like that, the Dems are well on their way. My message is that "message" is a noun and that everyone who uses it as a verb sounds like a self-satirist. I prefer the way Howard Dean put it in his advice to Democrats right after the votes were counted last year: “I think they need to figure out what they stand for and then talk about it.”</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/democrats-seek-message-message#commentsCongressNationGeographyPoliticsINNelection 2016Thu, 29 Jan 2015 15:12:53 +0000Eric Black90833 at http://www.minnpost.comDo Republicans really care about 'people like you'?http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/do-republicans-really-care-about-people-you
<p>If poll questions tell us such things, one of the keys to President Obama's reelection in 2012 was that he always, always, always outscored Mitt Romney on the "which candidate cares about people like you?" question. And among those who said (in exit polls on Election Day) that "cares about people like me" was the most important attribute, <a href="http://pos.org/2012/11/the-new-electoral-math-and-what-it-means-for-polling/">Obama got the votes of 81 percent</a>.</p><p>Yeah, yeah, Romney was very rich, and he said the 47 percent thing, and he had an elevator for his cars and all that. But cares-about-people-like-you is central to the Democratic Party's image. And it's a huge advantage. And Republicans know this.</p><p>Sometimes they respond by accusing Dems of waging "class warfare," which is not too far from invoking the Communist menace. Recently they have adopted the phrase "free stuff," as in Democrats are always offering "free stuff" to get your votes, which I suppose is meant to combine an accusation of bribery and an invocation of a more complicated argument that, since nothing is really free, Democrats' ideas will inevitably lead to higher taxes or higher deficits and economic collapse.</p><p>We are at an interesting moment on this cares-about-people thing. The U.S. economy is growing. It actually has been pretty much throughout the Obama years, and growing faster and more steadily than most economies in the world. But apparently some Republicans are no longer denying that it is growing. The unemployment rate is approaching a number that is usually considered healthy, or at least in the normal range. But, by every accounting, the recovery has mostly benefited the affluent more than the middle and lower classes.</p><p>Republicans have now started complaining that the recovery is not helping the average American enough. They have begun invoking the phrase "income inequality," which we usually hear more about from Democrats.</p><p>House Speaker John Boehner said in an interview on last weekend's "60 Minutes" that "frankly the president's policies have made income inequality worse." Sen. (and undeclared presidential candidate) Ted Cruz said at the "Freedom Partners" meeting last weekend that "The people who have been hammered for the last six years are working men and women."</p><p>When Democrats talk about about income inequality, Republicans often portray it as the first step down the road to class warfare. But when Republicans fret about income inequality, it strikes me as the first step toward arguing that they care about people like you.</p><p>The next question is what do they propose to do about it?</p><p class="MsoNormal">The daily <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/gop-establishment-2016-underdog-right-now-n294411">"First Read" memo from NBC News this morning </a>puts the question squarely. Under the subhead "The GOP's problem with their new income-inequality message," the NBCers ask: "So, how do you fix it?"</p><p class="MsoNormal">Obama favors raising the minimum wage. He favors closing tax loopholes that benefit rich individuals and corporations. He wants to make two years of community college available for free. The single biggest thing that Obamacare did to provide health insurance to those who couldn't afford it was to expand the Medicaid program for the working poor. He has lots of ideas that — without getting sucked in here to the argument over how effective they would be — clearly and straightforwardly take money from the rich and provide benefits to the non-rich. Republicans oppose all those things. But now, fairly suddenly, they are asking to be taken seriously as the party that is concerned about income inequality.</p><p class="MsoNormal">So, what policies do they propose to reduce income inequality?&nbsp; Stay tuned.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/do-republicans-really-care-about-people-you#commentsBarack ObamaCongressNationGeographyPoliticsINNJohn BoehnerTed CruzTue, 27 Jan 2015 15:47:54 +0000Eric Black90802 at http://www.minnpost.comInk-stained wretchedness on the radio Monday afternoonhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/ink-stained-wretchedness-radio-monday-afternoon
<p>If any regular (or irregular) readers of this space would be interested in hearing your humble and obedient ink-stained wretch on the radio, I'll be a guest this afternoon, between 4:30 and 4:50, on AM 950, "the progressive voice of Minnesota." The show is called The Daily Report. I believe they plan to ask me about a couple of recent posts.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/ink-stained-wretchedness-radio-monday-afternoon#commentsMon, 26 Jan 2015 20:02:08 +0000Eric Black90794 at http://www.minnpost.comA very, very long list of possible Republican presidential candidateshttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/very-very-long-list-possible-republican-presidential-candidates
<p>After a presidential wannabe cattle call in Iowa last week, today's edition of the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/four-reasons-many-republicans-running-2016/" target="_blank">Morning Line,</a>&nbsp;a daily email from the political team of PBS' "NewsHour," says at least 17 Republicans have said or done something to indicate a fairly serious interest in running for the party of Lincoln's presidential nomination in the next cycle (which we might as well start calling the current cycle).</p><p>Here's their list:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-01-24/john-bolton-still-thinking-about-a-rescuing-the-gop-in-2016" target="_blank">John Bolton</a>, Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, George Pataki, Rand Paul, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum, Donald Trump and Scott Walker.</p><p>I hate to say it, but they missed at least one —&nbsp;<a href="http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/19972-lindsey-graham-to-test-the-water-for-presidential-bid" target="_blank">South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham</a>.</p><p>The NewsHour-ers cited four possible explanations for the huge field:</p><p>Money (you have to start early to raise the unimaginable sums necessary); attention (it's now established that if you run and get even slightly famous, you can cash in with a TV contract or other fun stuff); the "Obama effect" (if President Obama, who was still an Illinois state senator two years ahead of the 2008 election, can do it, why not me?); and "history" (this is the overdone theory that because it is relatively rare in recent history for either party to win three straight presidential elections, this is going to be good year to be the Republican nominee). I've <a href="http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/11/does-history-show-hillary-clinton-unlikely-win-presidency-2016" target="_blank">previously pushed back against the last explanation,</a> but you'll continue to hear it.</p><p>I've also previously railed against the absurdity of having two of the 50 (Iowa and New Hampshire, and nowadays especially Iowa) states hold a permanently outsized role in the presidential nomination process. Just to summarize: it's absurd.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/very-very-long-list-possible-republican-presidential-candidates#commentsNationPoliticsMon, 26 Jan 2015 15:43:56 +0000Eric Black90786 at http://www.minnpost.comIs there good news lurking behind the lack of ‘compromise’ talk in Washington?http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/there-good-news-lurking-behind-lack-compromise-talk-washington
<p dir="ltr">Returning briefly to the State of the Union: the state of the Union appears to be uncompromising.</p><p dir="ltr">Nothing new there. And compromise is not really something to be ardently pursued for its own sake. And there are some things not worth compromising.</p><p dir="ltr">But, as I argued in a 2012 series titled <a href="http://www.minnpost.com/inside-minnpost/2013/01/eric-black-s-imperfect-union-now-available-e-book">Imperfect Union,</a> the U.S. system of government relies on bipartisan compromise more than most other systems in the world.</p><p dir="ltr">Under our system, there are sooo many ways to block a law, but it’s nearly impossible to make one unless you get it adopted, separately, by majorities in two houses of Congress, elected on different schedules (and, in the Senate, the majority often has to be a supermajority), signed by a president elected on yet a third schedule, and not struck down by a U.S. Supreme Court that is tenured for life, not elected at all and to whose conclusions about what the Constitution permits there is virtually no appeal.</p><p dir="ltr">Divided government — in which no single party controls all the levers needed to act — has become much more the norm than the exception. That means some agreement or compromise, across party lines, is necessary for the federal government to legislate much of anything — even a budget just to maintain the status quo.</p><p dir="ltr">Nothing new about that system, and there have been periods when compromise was normal and the system seemed to more or less work. But in the past decade or more, compromise has gone out of fashion. There’s blame to go around (or perhaps you believe that rather than blame it should be credit that goes around). But I pretty much subscribe to <a href="http://www.minnpost.com/node/71603">the Norm Ornstein-Tom Mann hypothesis</a> that the Republican Party — especially since the advent of its Tea Party faction — bears the larger share of the blame/credit for the era of gridlock.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Republicans miffed</h4><p dir="ltr">So it turns out that the Republicans had a very good year in the 2014 midterms and now hold majorities in both houses of Congress. But it also turns out that this doesn’t really change the likelihood of passing much legislation because of the power of the presidential veto. Republicans are miffed that President Obama continues to publicly wave his veto pen. But wave it he did, all but shouting tough noogies to the Repubs.</p><p dir="ltr">Now returning briefly to the State of the Union address: Obama chose to use the opportunity to talk about what he thinks Congress should do but he did not choose to use the opportunity to talk much about the necessity of compromise for anything to get done.</p><p dir="ltr">(Yes, at the end of the speech he did reprise a version of his famous there-is-no-red-America-or-blue-America-but-only-a-red-white-and-blue-America riff. But if you channel your inner-Republican and read carefully the things he says everyone can agree on, you’ll note a blue-ish cast to the list.)</p><p dir="ltr">There is an analysis of the speech that suggests that Obama used the speech to set up the terms of debate for the 2016 presidential election (and, of course, to set them up in a way that favors his own party). Maybe that’s true. Maybe it will help the Democrats hang on to the White House and improve their numbers in the Congress. But that election is two years off. The idea that after an election, there can be a slight diminution of political calculations for a few weeks to do a little governing seems to have disappeared. The fact that we news junkies are going to read multiple stories about the positioning and the fund-raising and the messaging about the 2016 election should be a little disturbing.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Away from limelight</h4><p dir="ltr">But for those who share some of my disgust with the permanent campaign, there may be some good news lurking behind the lack of “compromise” talk. It may be (in fact, it almost certainly must be) that you don’t get to compromise by saying the word “compromise” constantly. You don’t get there repeating that everything has to be on the table, when in fact there are many that if they stay on the table will be deal-breakers.</p><p dir="ltr">It may be (in fact, I’m sure this is so) that away from the limelight key members of Congress (and yes, representatives of the White House, too) are discussing bills that would include enough of what the reasonable wings of each party can support, and little enough of what they cannot possibly abide, to form a package that might pass and be signed and not be struck down and become law.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/there-good-news-lurking-behind-lack-compromise-talk-washington#commentsBarack ObamaCongressNationGeographyPoliticsINNImperfect Union: Constitutional Roots of the Mess We’re InState of the UnionThu, 22 Jan 2015 14:40:14 +0000Eric Black90748 at http://www.minnpost.comObama’s State of the Union address: defiant and unlikely to make any differencehttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/obama-s-state-union-address-defiant-and-unlikely-make-any-difference
<p dir="ltr">I liked President Obama’s State of the Union address, but I doubt it will be remembered for much, I doubt it changed many minds and I doubt it will make any difference. Looking back at the sentence, I think I had better just apologize in advance for a politics-weary tone that I haven’t been able to shake lately.</p><p dir="ltr">It was a small surprise that Obama spent so few words offering compromises or even begging Republicans for a spirit of compromise — although, again, it would not have made much difference if he had. As various Republicans reacted to the speech in the aftermath, I didn’t hear much talk of compromise. That will have to happen in a back room somewhere, or not at all.</p><p dir="ltr">Instead, Obama defended his record, which generally adhered around the phrase “middle-class economics.” He said:</p><div class="float-left"><div class="minnpost-ads-ad minnpost-ads-ad-Middle "><script type="text/javascript">OAS_AD("Middle");</script></div></div><p dir="ltr">“At every step, we were told our goals were misguided or too ambitious; that we would crush jobs and explode deficits.&nbsp;Instead, we’ve seen the fastest economic growth in over a decade, our deficits cut by two-thirds, a stock market that has doubled and health-care inflation at its lowest rate in 50 years.&nbsp;“</p><p dir="ltr">He reiterated his support for many similar “middle-class economics” policies, some of which were relatively new but were foreshadowed before the speech and some of which he has long favored.</p><p dir="ltr">These included raising the minimum wage, providing two tuition-free years for all at community colleges, paid sick leave, subsidized child care, some relief for students graduating from college with large debts, and more.</p><h4 dir="ltr">Little concrete talk</h4><p dir="ltr">There was little concrete talk about how he proposed to pay for these new benefits, although there is little doubt (and has been floated in other settings for some time) that he favors higher taxes on the wealthy. And he did refer to the need to close some tax loopholes, to stop rewarding corporations that keep their profits overseas and changes in the inheritance tax.</p><p dir="ltr">Anyway, Obama said (unsurprisingly, of course) that he will soon submit a budget and that it will represent his policy preferences more concretely.</p><p dir="ltr">He specified several things that he knows Republicans favor and he opposes and promised that “if a bill comes to my desk that tries to do any of these things, it will earn my veto.” In the aftermath, several Republicans denounced these threats as rude and hurtful, although I’d be surprised if many of them said similar things when Republican presidents threatened vetoes or actually vetoed something.</p><p dir="ltr">Obama claimed, without much detail and to a chorus of soon-to-follow Republican disagreement, that his foreign and military policies have made the United States safer and stronger while our rivals and adversaries have gone in the opposite direction. He noted ruefully that not long ago his critics claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggressive actions in Ukraine were “a masterful display of strategy and strength.” But on the contrary, Obama said, “today, it is America that stands strong and united with our allies, while Russia is isolated, with its economy in tatters.”</p><h4 dir="ltr">Moment of spontaneity</h4><p dir="ltr">Obama stuck closely to his script, except for one moment of spontaneity that some will find evidence of his scrappiness and others will call bitter, especially considering the result of the recent midterm election. Toward the end, Obama chose to revisit the theme of the 2004 keynote address he gave at the Democratic convention in Boston that nominated John Kerry, the claim — which subsequent years have made harder to believe — that there is not a red America and a blue America but a single, united, red-white-and-blue America. As he prepared to wind up with a call for unity along similar lines, he said: “I have no more campaigns to run …” A couple of wiseasses on the Republican side of the audience burst into spontaneous, sarcastic applause. Without hesitation, Obama replied: “I know, cuz I won both of ‘em.”</p><p dir="ltr">&nbsp;“A liberal speech by a liberal president,” Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said on Fox after the speech, and it seemed fair enough. Righty analyst Brit Hume put it this way: “He just made a speech in which he outlined a series of proposals, that were anything but new and different. ... Basically he made a set of offers that he knows Republicans can’t accept and won’t accept.” Hume said the speech represented “an unreconstructed Barack Obama; an unreconstructed left liberal.”</p><p dir="ltr">I suspect some who are to the left of Obama might disagree with the second-to-last word.</p><p dir="ltr">Columnist Juan Williams, who serves regularly as a token liberal on Fox panels, called the speech “defiant.” I get what he meant.</p><p>The transcript of the speech, as prepared for delivery and not including the snarky aside above, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/sotu-transcript-state-of-the-union-transcript-text-video-114421.html#ixzz3PQy1peEF">is here.</a></p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/obama-s-state-union-address-defiant-and-unlikely-make-any-difference#commentsArmed ForcesBarack ObamaCongressNationGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNState of the UnionWed, 21 Jan 2015 14:29:19 +0000Eric Black90731 at http://www.minnpost.comWhy the U.S. is rarely at peace and often seeking monsters to destroy http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/why-us-rarely-peace-and-often-seeking-monsters-destroy
<p dir="ltr">This is not normal for the ordinary nations of the world, but the United States is pretty much never at peace, although the degree to which we are “at war” rises and falls.</p><p dir="ltr">And, to the degree that we are sometimes approaching that happy state where our military isn’t killing anyone and the CIA isn’t plotting the covert overthrow of any foreign government, there is at least a permanent discussion of whether we should be killing or overthrowing somewhere in “bad guy” territory.</p><p dir="ltr">(And, as I’ve <a href="http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/americans-view-recent-us-wars-good-idea-time-now-not-so-much">mentioned recently</a>, the U.S. public generally starts out believing that the war will be worth it but eventually concludes that it wasn’t.)</p><p dir="ltr">Washington-based journalist Robert Parry, editor of Consortium News and who broke some of the biggest elements of the Iran-Contra story, has continued to shine a light on the doings of the permanent war party.</p><p dir="ltr">In <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2015/01/17/neocons-the-anti-realists/">an overview of how this works</a>, Parry calls the permanent war-sters by two labels, &nbsp;“Neo-conservatives” and “liberal interventionists,” and, in a recent effort to explain the whole phenomenon, he lumps them together as “the anti-realism.”</p><p dir="ltr">It’s a long piece and I highly recommend it to those who can handle an unsentimental discussion of U.S. actions in the world over recent history.</p><p dir="ltr">Parry starts with a great quote from John Quincy Adams, in 1821 when he was secretary of state under President James Monroe:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will [the United States’] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">For many decades now, the reality has been roughly the opposite. We are always going abroad, at least partly seeking monsters to destroy and perhaps to benefit various elements of the military-industrial complex and the U.S-based multinational corporations. The resulting wars and covert overthrows, Parry suggests, seldom deliver real democracy or the better future to the target people.</p><p dir="ltr">I can’t do Parry’s analysis justice here, but I can recommend that you <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2015/01/17/neocons-the-anti-realists/">click through</a> and read the whole thing. Here’s one more taste from Parry’s summary section, which is in some ways a summary of his life’s work:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">These interventions are always dressed up as moral crusades — the need to free some population from the clutches of a U.S.-defined “monster.” There usually is some “crisis” in which the “monster” is threatening “innocent life” and triggering a “responsibility to protect” with the catchy acronym, “R2P.”</p><p dir="ltr">But the reality about these “anti-realists” is that their actions, in real life, almost always inflict severe harm on the country being “rescued.” The crusade kills many people — innocent and guilty — and the resulting disorder can spread far and wide, like some contagion that cannot be contained. The neocons and the liberal interventionists have become, in effect, carriers of the deadly disease called chaos.</p></blockquote>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/why-us-rarely-peace-and-often-seeking-monsters-destroy#commentsArmed ForcesNationWorldGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNTue, 20 Jan 2015 14:40:00 +0000Eric Black90705 at http://www.minnpost.comElizabeth Warren says she will not run for president in 2016http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/elizabeth-warren-says-she-will-not-run-president-2016
<p><a href="http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/elizabeth-warren-says-she-s-not-running-president-what-does-mean">A month ago, I had a little snarky fun</a> parsing Sen. Elizabeth Warren's effort to make it sound like she wouldn't be a presidential candidate in 2014 without actually saying so.</p><p>The gag then was that, when asked about a presidential bid, Warren always used the exact same phrase: "I am not running for president." You didn't need a highly tuned b.s. detector to grasp that "I am not running" didn't completely rule out a decision to start running.</p><p>When Steve Inskeep of NPR asked her whether "I'm not running" covered only the current moment or ruled out a bid during the 2016 cycle, she declined to give a clear response, which I took as a sign that she was keeping her option open.</p><p>That changed (in my perception at least) when Warren sat down with former FDIC Chair Shelia Bair for <a href="http://fortune.com/2015/01/13/elizabeth-warren-sheila-bair/">an interview published in Fortune</a>, which included this exchange.</p><blockquote><p style="padding-left: 30px;">Bair: So are you going to run for president?</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">Warren: No.</p></blockquote><p>(And that was her entire answer).</p><p>That may be not be the full Sherman. (Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, seeking to put to rest the rumors that he would be the Republican candidate in 1884,<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shermanesque_statement"> said</a>: "I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected.") But I take it to be a clear non-coy answer and so did Fortune, which headlined that it had obtained "the final word on a White House run."</p><p>I'm a huge fan of straight talk from politicians, of which there is little and, in my humble opinion, even less than there used to be. In general, on policy, Warren has been toward the high end of the candor spectrum. Her brief flirtation with parsing tenses on the subject of "not running" was a temporary deviation from that behavior and I'm glad she has decided to clarify.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/elizabeth-warren-says-she-will-not-run-president-2016#commentsNationGeographyPoliticsINNelection 2016Elizabeth WarrenTue, 13 Jan 2015 23:02:58 +0000Eric Black90647 at http://www.minnpost.comThe U.S. ally that flogs bloggershttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/us-ally-flogs-bloggers
<p>Everyone knows it isn't strictly true, but in understanding the U.S. role in the world there's an underlying fairy story that our country is the leader of the good guy nations of the world against the bad guys, and that good-guy-ness has a lot to do with freedom and democracy.</p><p>On balance, there's a certain tendency in that direction. But there have been, and continue be, many awkward exceptions. The close alliance, dating back to the 1940s, between the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is one of the most awkward. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy rooted in a harsh sect of Islam that makes little pretense of respect for democracy or many freedoms that the West holds dear.</p><p>In the current, post-Charlie-Hebdo moment, it's particularly awkward that the Saudi authorities have sentenced a 30-year-old blogger to floggings and imprisonment from the crime of scoffing at the Saudi governments official efforts to promote virtue and prevent vice.</p><p>That last vice and virtue phrase is extremely literal. The Saudi government maintains a special police force to enforce morality run by the "Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice." Officers from this corps do things like hit, with sticks, unmarried couples who are seen in public holding hands. The blogger, Raif Badawi, has mocked the vice/virtue squad and has now been sentenced to a jail term which is to be interrupted 20 times by being taken from his cell and publicly flogged.</p><p>Awkwardly, the first 20 lashes were administered last Friday while much of the civilized world was busy expressing its solidarity with the French cartoonists who had disrespected the Prophet Mohammed. The disrespect of Badawi pales in comparison to Charlie's cartoons.</p><p>I rely here on <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/saudi-whipping">Robin Wright's short New Yorker piece on the blogger's case.</a> She gives an example of the kind of blasphemy for which Badawi was sentenced. Noting that Saudi law bans the advocacy, on Saudi soil, of any religion other than the strict Wahabbi brand of Islam, Badawi wrote:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"We have not asked ourselves how it is that America allows Islamic missionaries on its territory, and how it is that we reject under all circumstances the freedom to proselytize within our Kingdom’s land. We can no longer hide our heads like an ostrich and say that no one can see us or that no one cares. Whether we like it or not, we, being a part of humanity, have the same duties that others have as well as the same rights."</p><p>The judge in Badawi's case originally recommended that he be charged with "apostasy," which carries the death penalty. But he got off on a lesser charge that could include a punishment of ten years in prison and a fine that exceeds a quarter of a million dollars.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/us-ally-flogs-bloggers#commentsSaudi ArabiaTue, 13 Jan 2015 16:55:17 +0000Eric Black90637 at http://www.minnpost.comThe very last election result of the 2014 cycle is now inhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/very-last-election-result-2014-cycle-now
<p>Despite my long-obvious obsession with the vagaries of the U.S. "system" of politics and elections, I hadn't come across this one before: In Vermont, if nobody wins a majority of the popular vote for governor, the Legislature chooses the governor with each member of the state House and Senate casting one vote.</p><p>Last year, the Democratic incumbent Peter Shumlin was expected to cruise to an easy reelection but in fact he barely edged Republican nominee Scott Milne, 46.4 to 45.1 percent. So, under that quirky provision, which goes way back in Vermont history and has happened 24 times before, the Legislature had to choose between the top two finishers today.</p><p>Here's another weird thing: The vote of the legislators is a secret ballot. And some Democrats apparently voted for the Republican. But Shumlin won comfortably by a vote of 110-69.</p><p><a href="http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/politics/2015/01/08/vermont-legislature-vote/21394309/">Here's the coverage of the final vote from the Burlington (VT.) Free Press</a>.</p><p></p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/very-last-election-result-2014-cycle-now#commentsFri, 09 Jan 2015 16:52:14 +0000Eric Black90596 at http://www.minnpost.comAmericans’ view of recent U.S. wars: A good idea at the time — but now, not so muchhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/americans-view-recent-us-wars-good-idea-time-now-not-so-much
<p dir="ltr">Maybe the question is this: How many wars in a row do we have to get into and then get out of with a feeling that it wasn’t worth it before we figure out a way to get into fewer of them?</p><p dir="ltr">ABC News recently <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2015/01/at-the-end-of-afghanistan-war-most-doubt-its-value/" target="_blank">refreshed a 12-year-long poll</a> inquiry into the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Like pretty much everyone who polls on that general idea, it found that Americans, who once thought by a humongous majority that the war was a good idea, have switched and now rate the war “a mistake.”</p><p dir="ltr">ABC doesn’t use the word “mistake” in its question. It asks whether the war was “worth fighting.” But Gallup, which has asked the question 17 times since shortly after the U.S. invaded, does ask: “Do you think the United States made a mistake sending troops to fight in Afghanistan?”</p><p dir="ltr">Click <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/167471/americans-view-afghanistan-war-mistake.aspx" target="_blank">here to see the trend line</a>, which is really quite impressive. In 2002, the verdict was in favor of the war by 93-6 percent. That positive verdict dropped steadily through the years, and a year ago the “it-was-a-mistake” crowd finally surpassed the “no-it-wasn’t-ers.” So most of us who said at first that it was the right and smart thing to do and have decided since then that it was a mistake after all, blame themselves for mistakenly supporting going to war.</p><p dir="ltr">You can’t cross-examine a poll question to delve more precisely into what was the mistake, who made it and how.</p><p dir="ltr">On the other hand, Gallup has been asking the “was it a mistake” question about every war since World War II. The last four major wars all started out with a majority believing that it was a good idea to send the troops in and ended up with a majority believing that it was mistake to have done so. The polling about these four wars was summarized by Gallup in the same link from above (<a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/167471/americans-view-afghanistan-war-mistake.aspx" target="_blank">here it is again</a>), but to summarize:</p><ul><li>Korean War: In August of 1950, Gallup found that by 65-20, Americans thought it was worth it. By January of 1951, a plurality of 49-38 said it had been a mistake. The war lasted two and a half more years.</li></ul><ul><li>Vietnam: In August of 1965, by 60-24, Americans thought it was not a mistake to get involved militarily in that country. By October of 1967 a plurality of 17-44 said it had been a mistake. Supported eroded further from there as the war dragged until it ended in the fall of Saigon in 1975.</li></ul><ul><li>Iraq: The war started in 2003 with 75 percent telling Gallup that it was not a mistake. By June of 2004 it had crossed into majority-mistake territory.</li></ul><ul><li>Afghanistan, we’ve covered above. The combat phase of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been declared over, but the killing continues in both places and U.S. troops are still there and in harm’s way.</li></ul><p dir="ltr">I asked Scott Keeter, director of research for the Pew Center, for help in thinking through what it might mean that the public keeps switching from worth it to not worth it, in war after war.</p><p dir="ltr">He said it was normal for support to decay as the evidence accumulated that the war would be futile, that the results that they believed would be forthcoming became less and less probable, that the leaders whom the United States had put into power in Iraq and Afghanistan were neither as friendly nor as competent as the U.S. leadership had led Americans to believe.</p><p dir="ltr">I also asked University of Minnesota professor Howard Lavine, who specializes in political psychology, for help. He replied: “I think Americans like clean, easily winnable wars. They also don't like it when presidents start wars that can't be decisively won in a reasonable amount of time. I think the public correctly perceives the war in Afghanistan as an unwinnable quagmire.”</p><p dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/mass-insanity-world-war-i-and-what-we-can-see-it-today" target="_blank">My post on Monday</a> linked to a long criticism of the futility of World War I by a Canadian writer named John Chuckman. As I read more by Chuckman, I came across <a href="http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2014/04/17/hurtling-into-darkness-americas-great-leap-towards-global-tyranny/" target="_blank">his blistering summary</a> of why he believes the United States gets into one war after another. It included this:</p><blockquote><p>America’s neo-con faction has had its agenda adopted over the last few decades, that of freely and happily using America’s great military and economic power to crush those abroad who disagree with America’s arbitrary pronouncements, creating a long crusade intended to re-order the affairs of others with no apologies to them and no honest explanation to America’s own people who pay the taxes and provide the lives of soldiers.</p></blockquote>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/americans-view-recent-us-wars-good-idea-time-now-not-so-much#commentsArmed ForcesNationGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNThu, 08 Jan 2015 14:57:01 +0000Eric Black90554 at http://www.minnpost.comThe mass insanity of World War I — and what we can see in it todayhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/mass-insanity-world-war-i-and-what-we-can-see-it-today
<p dir="ltr">Happy New Year to MinnPost readers.</p><p dir="ltr"><a href="http://readersupportednews.org/pm-section/21-21/26953-what-we-truly-learned-from-the-great-war-and-the-absurdity-of-remembrance-day" target="_blank">This short, blunt, unsentimental essay</a> (on why peace is generally better than war) has been available online since last August, which was of course the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I (originally known as “the Great War,” until World War II came along and made it look a bit less great and not all unique). But a friend only recently called it to my attention, and my only goal this morning is to submit it “for your consideration,” as Rod Serling often used to say in the intros to episodes of “The Twilight Zone.”</p><p dir="ltr">The author, John W. Chuckman, seems only to want to rinse away the eyewash that enables many Europeans and North Americans to view World War I as a noble enterprise, at least insofar as their own country was involved.</p><p dir="ltr">It turned out not to be “the war to end all wars,” as it was sometimes called at the time, in fact it planted many of the seeds that sprouted soon after into World War II. Chuckman argues, convincingly, to me at least, that the Great War was:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“essentially a fight between two branches of a single royal family over the balance of power on the continent of Europe” [this is a reference to the fact that Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany and King George of England were cousins, although the family relations spread into the Russian imperial family as well];</p><p dir="ltr">“a war between the world’s greatest existing imperial power, Britain, and another state, Germany, which aspired to become a greater imperial power than it was;</p><p dir="ltr">“a war resulting from large standing armies and great arms races… as with any huge, shiny new investment, great armies will always be used, and the results are almost invariably great misery.”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">Chuckman archly notes the shock of today’s civilized nations “that young men sometimes go abroad to fight for a cause, religious or otherwise, but compared to the mass insanity of World War I, what we see today is truly petty. The authorities everywhere then made great efforts to push young men, using songs, marching bands, slogans, shame and social pressure in many forms, and countless lies. The nonsense about the Kaiser’s troops bayonetting babies was one example, a lie served up again decades later with a slight twist by George Bush the Elder’s government.”</p><p dir="ltr">That last reference, in case your medium-term memory has lost it, was to the falsehood during the run-up to 1990-91 “Operation Desert Storm” alleging that Iraqi troops in Kuwait had ripped babies from their respirators.</p><p dir="ltr">Anyway, I don’t want to paraphrase the whole piece. It's not long and I hope you click through and read it all. And remember, when causes and justifications for the next war are under discussion, that the causes for which the propagandists tell us the war must be fought seldom hold up as the real causes, and the promised benefits of victory seldom turn out as promised either.</p><p dir="ltr">And also, perhaps, to remember during the run-up to the next war that war is profitable mostly for war profiteers and that whichever side you are fighting or rooting for will almost certainly commit atrocities that will look as barbaric to those on the receiving end of them as their side’s atrocities look to you.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/mass-insanity-world-war-i-and-what-we-can-see-it-today#commentsArmed ForcesNationWorldGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNWorld War IWorld War IIMon, 05 Jan 2015 14:56:23 +0000Eric Black90510 at http://www.minnpost.comMario Cuomo, by one who loved himhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/mario-cuomo-one-who-loved-him
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<![endif]-->There’s a joke that goes:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">How can you tell when a politician is lying?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">Answer: Their lips move.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Those of us who don’t run for high office, but sneer from the cheap seats at those who do, need to somehow find a way to limit our natural and often justified cynicism that those who run are little more than ambition made flesh, willing to say or do anything to get to the next rung of the slippery ladder.</p><p class="MsoNormal">The passing of Mario Cuomo is a good opportunity to recall that there are politicians who are politicians because they believe in things and want to give voice to those beliefs, who must have ambition and some quotient of ruthlessness to get anywhere in the politics game, but who are not just ruthless ambition made flesh.</p><p class="MsoNormal">When a politician announces they will not run, the fallback cynical journalistic thought is that the candidate decided he couldn’t win.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Cuomo was the media-designated frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992, but decided not to run. Writing for the New Yorker, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/remembering-mario-cuomo?intcid=mod-latest">Ken Auletta, who covered Cuomo closely and knew him well, says that</a>:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">“He chose not to run for President in 1992 because his ambition was superseded by his distaste for the grovelling, the fundraising, the selling, the motels.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Cuomo was also a liberal’s liberal. Auletta confesses that he “loved” Cuomo. You can sneer at that if you like, but Auletta, at 72, has nothing to gain from such a unjournalistic confession. He cites what he calls his “most consequential memory” of Cuomo, from his keynote speech at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">“He challenged President Reagan’s assertion that America was like a ‘shining city on a hill.’</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">“Mr. President, you ought to know that this nation is more a ‘Tale of Two Cities’ than it is just a ‘Shining City on a Hill,’” Cuomo declared. “There is despair, Mr. President, in the faces that you don’t see, in the places that you don’t visit, in your shining city.”</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/01/mario-cuomo-one-who-loved-him#commentsFri, 02 Jan 2015 16:21:26 +0000Eric Black90505 at http://www.minnpost.comIs James Webb a threat to Hillary Clinton in 2016?http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/james-webb-threat-hillary-clinton-2016
<p dir="ltr">Writing <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/23/opinion/the-real-threat-to-hillary-clinton-jim-webb.html?ref=todayspaper&amp;_r=1">for the New York Times op-ed page, Jacob Heilbrunn suggests</a> that the biggest threat to Hillary Clinton’s coronation as 2016 Democratic nominee could be a foreign policy-based challenge, from the peacenik side, by someone like former Sen. James Webb of Virginia, who was also a Vietnam vet, a former secretary of the Navy and, as Heilbrunn summarizes the nub of the matter, an “opponent of endless wars in the Middle East.”</p><p dir="ltr">I don’t pretend to know what Clinton’s core convictions are in foreign and military policy. Heilbrunn implies she “has been tacking to the right on Iran, Syria and Russia in anticipation of Republican assaults during the general election.” I note that, as a Senator, she voted to authorize the Iraq War, which cost her dearly in her 2008 presidential race against Barack Obama, who (although he was not a Senator at the time of the Iraq vote) had publicly opposed the war.</p><p dir="ltr">Webb was also not in the Senate in 2003, but he did publish an op-ed piece that warned, at a time when the American people were being told that their troops would be greeted as liberators: “[T]he Iraqis are a multiethnic people filled with competing factions who in many cases would view a U.S. occupation as infidels invading the cradle of Islam.”</p><p dir="ltr">Webb retired from the Senate in 2012, voluntarily, after one term. He has formed an exploratory committee for a possible presidential candidacy.</p><p>If polls measure anything, Clinton must be viewed as the overwhelming favorite for the Democratic nomination. But, other than an incumbent president, the prohibitive favorites always get challenged, often seriously.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/james-webb-threat-hillary-clinton-2016#commentsBarack ObamaNationWorldGeographyPoliticsINNHillary ClintonTue, 23 Dec 2014 17:44:02 +0000Eric Black90493 at http://www.minnpost.comWalter Mondale defends torture report, rejects CIA responsehttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/walter-mondale-defends-torture-report-rejects-cia-response
<div class="image float-right"><img class="imagecache-article_detail" src="/sites/default/files/imagecache/article_detail/WalterMondale2004_225_0.jpg" alt="Walter Mondale" title="Walter Mondale" /><div class="credit">REUTERS/Susan Walsh</div><div class="caption">Walter Mondale</div></div><p dir="ltr">As one of the leading members of the famed Church Committee on intelligence activities in the mid-1970s, then-Sen. Walter Mondale thought long and hard about how to strike the balances between the needs of the CIA to do its work, the demands and limits imposed by the U.S. Constitution and international law, and of the dangerous temptation to cross the line into torture and cover-up. So it seemed worth checking in with the former vice president for reaction to the most recent Senate committee to investigate similar matters.</p><p dir="ltr">“The Church Committee [which was chaired by Sen. Frank Church and investigated intelligence gathering following various Watergate revelations] tried to lay out the competing ideas, checks and balances, separation of power, the need to both have secret operations and nevertheless retain accountability of the intelligence community to the Congress and the people,” Mondale said. “It seemed that those principles were really sustained pretty well until 9/11, which generated so much fear. And some people used the fear to suggest that all those things could be removed, and had to be removed, and we should simply have secret unlimited authority for the CIA and the NSA [National Security Administration] to do whatever they pleased.”</p><p dir="ltr">There were people in Congress who knew what was happening, including who thought the truth had to be put on the table, Mondale said, but that impulse kicked off “this long six-year struggle, all the partisan division that went with it, before we could get a report out, and even then with all kinds of reluctance.”</p><p dir="ltr">“Nevertheless,” Mondale said, “an excellent report” that laid the groundwork for Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein and Sen. John McCain (not a member of the committee, but a leading Republican voice on national security issues) to “reasserted the idea that America is determined to work within the law.”</p><div class="float-left"><div class="minnpost-ads-ad minnpost-ads-ad-Middle "><script type="text/javascript">OAS_AD("Middle");</script></div></div><p dir="ltr">“I’m really thrilled with what they did, even as I am anxious about how long it took and the untidy way that the results were finally reached and published and — more than that — troubled by the CIA statements that it did nothing wrong and that we should be prepared to repeat the same measures if they deem it necessary.”</p><p dir="ltr">Mondale completely rejected the CIA argument, supported by most Republican senators, that a line was carefully enforced to make sure the “enhanced interrogation techniques” wouldn’t cross the line into “torture.”</p><p dir="ltr">I asked him if he had any doubt whether the line was crossed into torture. He replied: “I don’t think there’s any argument about that,” and Mondale. He cited the similar conclusion of McCain, who Mondale said, “really knows what he’s talking about on that.”</p><p dir="ltr">Mondale singled out former Vice President Dick Cheney as one who is defending the “enhanced interrogations” and CIA Director John Brennan, who also defended the practices. He said the failure to hold any executive branch official accountable, even by merely the loss a job, sent the wrong message into the future.</p><p dir="ltr">“If you don’t settle these things in a way that leaves lines clear, it’s like leaving a loaded revolver on the kitchen table,” Mondale said. But the situation is nonetheless better than it would have been without the publication of the committee report.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/walter-mondale-defends-torture-report-rejects-cia-response#commentsCongressNationGeographyPoliticsHistoryINNWalter MondaleMon, 22 Dec 2014 14:49:07 +0000Eric Black90476 at http://www.minnpost.comBush vs. Clinton race? A ‘merger between political and economic power’http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/bush-vs-clinton-race-merger-between-political-and-economic-power
<p dir="ltr">Jeb Bush has gone, in the matter of the time it took for him to tweet his weird oh-so-21st-century announcement that he would be seriously “exploring” a 2016 presidential candidacy, from a guy whose wife might really keep him home to the status of front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. Of course, the evanescent status of frontrunner doesn’t always last, as the Republicans demonstrated multiple times in 2012 before eventually making their way back to the original front-runner, Mitt Romney.</p><p dir="ltr">Hillary Clinton seems to have a hold of the most dominant frontrunnership of any non-incumbent in history. We’ll see how that turns out. But get used to various observers observing that, while we have had “legacy” candidates before, we’ve never had both major parties each nominate for president in the same cycle someone closely related by blood or marriage to someone who has already been president.</p><p dir="ltr">This thought will be coming up a lot, sometimes as a wisecrack or a curiosity, but often as a feature of a democracy that has lost its way. <a href="https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/12/17/jeb-bush-v-hillary-clinton-perfectly-illustrative-election/">Writing for The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald portrays</a> the new fact as seriously troubling, thus:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">Having someone who is the brother of one&nbsp;former president and the son of another run against the wife of still another former president would be sweetly illustrative of all sorts of degraded and illusory aspects of American life, from meritocracy to class mobility. That one of those two families exploited&nbsp;its&nbsp;vast wealth to obtain political power, while the other exploited its&nbsp;political power to obtain vast wealth, makes it more illustrative still: of the virtually complete merger between political and economic power, of the fundamentally oligarchical framework that drives American political life.</p><p dir="ltr">Then there are their similar constituencies: what Politico termed “money men” instantly celebrated Jeb Bush’s likely candidacy, while the same publication noted&nbsp;just last month how Wall Street has long been unable to contain its collective glee over a likely Hillary Clinton presidency. The two ruling families have, unsurprisingly, developed a movingly warm relationship befitting their position: the matriarch of the Bush family&nbsp;(former First Lady Barbara)&nbsp;has described the Clinton patriarch (former President Bill) as a virtual family member, noting that her son, George W., affectionately calls his predecessor “my brother by another mother.”</p><p dir="ltr">If this happens, the 2016 election would vividly underscore how the American political class functions: by dynasty, plutocracy, fundamental alignment of interests masquerading as deep ideological divisions, and political power translating into vast private wealth and back again.&nbsp;The educative value would be undeniable: somewhat like how the torture report did, it would rub everyone’s noses in exactly those truths they are most eager to avoid acknowledging.</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">Greenwald’s point is a serious one. Barack Obama was not born to wealth or status. But Mitt Romney was, so was John McCain, John Kerry, George W. Bush, Al Gore and the first President Bush.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/bush-vs-clinton-race-merger-between-political-and-economic-power#commentsBarack ObamaNationGeographyPoliticsINNelection 2016Hillary ClintonJeb BushThu, 18 Dec 2014 14:33:32 +0000Eric Black90423 at http://www.minnpost.comFranken backs Hillary Clinton for president http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/franken-backs-hillary-clinton-president
<p dir="ltr">U.S. Sen. Al Franken supports Hillary Clinton for president and will say so on TV later today.</p><p dir="ltr">NBC’s “First Read” previews the statement that Franken made during the taping of “The Cycle,” which will air at 2 p.m. today on MSNBC. It went like this:</p><p dir="ltr">Franken: “I think that Hillary would make a great president. I think, I certainly feel I haven't announced that I'm supporting her, but does this count? I guess, maybe this counts… I think that I'm ready for Hillary. I mean, I think that we've not had someone this experienced, this tough, and she's very, very impressive. People have asked me about Elizabeth Warren. She is great but she's not running. She says she's not running. So I don't — I think Hillary would be great.”</p><p dir="ltr">As <a href="http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/elizabeth-warren-says-she-s-not-running-president-what-does-mean">I mentioned Monday</a>, Sen. Warren’s “I am not running for president” statement is apparently designed not to be totally dispositive, but Franken seems to think it is grounds enough to back-handedly declare himself “ready for Hillary.” As I also mentioned, there are elements of the leftier regions of the party that would like to see Clinton challenged from the left.</p><p dir="ltr">But I also noticed last week that Howard Dean had published an <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/12/howard-dean-ready-for-hillary-113444.html#.VJBlyntGaVH">op-ed in Politico that constituted a full-throated endorsement of Clinton</a>. That seems worth mentioning in this context because Dean, at the peak of his sudden and ill-fated but fairly amazing rise to front-runnership for the Dem presidential nomination in 2004, embodied the kind of no-apologies liberalism that Warren does now.</p><p dir="ltr">Franken is also viewed as a member of what his old friend Paul Wellstone used to call “the democratic wing of the Democratic Party.”</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/franken-backs-hillary-clinton-president#commentsNationGeographyPoliticsAl FrankenElizabeth WarrenHillary ClintonTue, 16 Dec 2014 17:45:56 +0000Eric Black90388 at http://www.minnpost.comElizabeth Warren says she’s not running for president, but what does that mean?http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/elizabeth-warren-says-she-s-not-running-president-what-does-mean
<p dir="ltr">When she is asked about a possible presidential candidacy, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts issues a seemingly simple six-word reply: “I am not running for president.”</p><p dir="ltr">Although the leftier wing of the Democratic Party is nervous about Hillary Clinton, about the fact that she voted for the Iraq War, about her ties to Wall Street money, and generally about just how liberal of a president she would be, a Warren candidacy could be problematic for both women, even if only because they are both women and would have to divide between them a portion of the Democratic primary electorate that is strongly motivated about electing the first woman president.</p><p dir="ltr">But since Warren is “not running for the president,” that potential problem goes away, right?</p><p dir="ltr">The first time I heard Warren’s declaration of non-candidacy, I was impressed with its apparent non-waffling clarity. But after a while, I noticed that she always used exactly those six words and that, on their face, they could translate into “I am not at this time a declared candidate for president, but I am holding open the option of entering the race.”</p><p dir="ltr">In an NPR interview Monday morning, Steve Inskeep pressed on the “present tense” issue. He asked Warren what she would say to people, calling themselves “Ready for Warren,” who are encouraging her to run for president in 2016. She replied:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr"><strong>Warren:</strong> “I'm, I'm not running for president. That's not what we're doing. We had a really important fight in the United States Congress just this past week. And I'm putting all my energy into that fight and to what happens after this.”</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>Inskeep:</strong> “Would you tell these independent groups, ‘Give it up!’ You're just never going to run.”</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>Warren:</strong> “I told them, ‘I'm not running for president.’ ”</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>Inskeep:</strong> “You're putting that in the present tense, though. Are you never going to run?”</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>Warren:</strong> “I am not running for president.”</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>Inskeep:</strong> “You're not putting a ‘never’ on that.”</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>Warren:</strong> “I am not running for president. You want me to put an exclamation point at the end?”</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>Inskeep:</strong> (Laughs) “OK, that's fine.”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">Translation: Warren is keeping her options open and might run for president.</p><p dir="ltr">The <a href="http://www.wbur.org/npr/370817279/sen-warren-warns-that-spending-bill-sets-dangerous-precedent">full transcript of the Inskeep-Warren interview is here</a>.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/elizabeth-warren-says-she-s-not-running-president-what-does-mean#commentsNationGeographyINNElizabeth WarrenHillary ClintonMon, 15 Dec 2014 20:30:27 +0000Eric Black90371 at http://www.minnpost.comDick Cheney’s definition of torture is too stupid or insulting to let standhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/dick-cheney-s-definition-torture-too-stupid-or-insulting-let-stand
<p dir="ltr">Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday on “Meet the Press” that the “enhanced interrogation techniques” weren’t torture. So, reasonably, “Meet the Press" moderator Chuck Todd asked him to give his definition of what would constitute torture. Here’s what Cheney said:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“Well, torture, to me, Chuck, is an American citizen on a cell phone making a last call to his four young daughters shortly before he burns to death in the upper levels of the Trade Center in New York City on 9/11. There's this notion that somehow there's moral equivalence between what the terrorists and what we do. And that's absolutely not true. We were very careful to stop short of torture. The Senate has seen fit to label their report torture. But we worked hard to stay short of that definition.”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. The 9/11 attacks were a moral crime of enormous magnitude, a mass murder, a massacre of innocents. But they have nothing to do with torture.</p><p dir="ltr">Here’s the definition of torture from the U.N. convention that bans torture, a document to which the United States is signatory:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“Torture' means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">What is Cheney up to? I always assumed he was a smart man. This is too stupid to let stand or else it is an insult to the intelligence of even the small portion of the U.S. population that watches “Meet the Press.”</p><p dir="ltr">Cheney did say during the interview that the administration relied on legal advice as to the boundaries of torture, and tried to create a program of “enhanced interrogation” that was on the non-torture side of those boundaries. I find that pretty ridiculous and insulting. But I suppose anyone who worked for Bush-Cheney administration was under a lot of pressure to let the CIA do whatever would work.</p><p dir="ltr">Personally, without having read all the documents, I don’t know if I believe the conclusion of the Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats that the torture didn’t “work” in terms of extracting information that couldn’t be discovered other ways. Even if it did, our government was bound by law not to torture prisoners.</p><p dir="ltr">It’s also easy to assume that Cheney’s answer was not intended as an answer but as a distraction, an effort to remind us of the fear, horror, panic and bloodlust in the wake of 9/11.</p><p dir="ltr">In any event, when Todd came back to give Cheney a chance to get real, it went exactly the same. Here is Cheney’s second answer to the how-do-you-define-torture question:</p><blockquote><p dir="ltr">“I've told you what meets the definition of torture. It's what 19 guys armed with airline tickets and box cutters did to 3,000 Americans on 9/11.”</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">By the way. Todd also asked Cheney whether the subsequent events in Iraq and the neighborhood since the end of “Operation Iraqi Freedom” give him any regrets about the decision to invade.</p><p dir="ltr">Cheney said no, and adverted to the generally discredited argument that Saddam Hussein had a substantial relationship with al-Qaida and that Saddam might have provided al-Qaida with WMD.</p><p dir="ltr">The full <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-transcript-december-14-2014-n268181" target="_blank">transcript of the Todd-Cheney interview is here</a>.</p><p dir="ltr">Politifact checked the assertion Cheney made and ruled that his claim that there was a danger of Saddam providing WMD to al-Qaida was “false,” and that Cheney’s argument that the prisoners who were tortured were not covered by the Geneva Convention was rated “mostly false.” The <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2014/dec/14/punditfact-fact-checks-dick-cheney-meet-press/">full fact-check is here</a>.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/dick-cheney-s-definition-torture-too-stupid-or-insulting-let-stand#commentsNationWorldGeographyINNDick CheneySaddam HusseinMon, 15 Dec 2014 15:06:38 +0000Eric Black90361 at http://www.minnpost.comBorowitz satire: Citigroup to move HQ to floor of U.S. Househttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/borowitz-satire-citigroup-move-hq-floor-us-house
<p><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/citigroup-move-headquarters-u-s-capitol-building?utm_source=tny&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=borowitz&amp;mbid=nl_Borowitz%20%28139%29&amp;CNDID=17211755&amp;spMailingID=7359972&amp;spUserID=MjUyNDM5MjQyMDES1&amp;spJobID=581706463&amp;spReportId=NTgxNzA2NDYzS0">Writing for the New Yorker, satirist Andy Borowitz breaks the fake news </a>that Citigroup has leased space on the House floor so it can stop running back and forth from New York to tell Congress what it wants.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/borowitz-satire-citigroup-move-hq-floor-us-house#commentsSat, 13 Dec 2014 20:09:26 +0000Eric Black90357 at http://www.minnpost.comU.S. out of line among developed nations in portion of population imprisonedhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/us-out-line-among-developed-nations-portion-population-imprisoned
<p dir="ltr">The United States is way out of line with the rest of the developed world in the portion of the population that is incarcerated, sociologist Christopher Uggen said at a forum Wednesday night at the University of Minnesota.</p><p dir="ltr">And it will be of little surprise that the disproportion is significantly different when separated by race.</p><p dir="ltr">Many of the most developed nations in the world, such as Japan or in Western Europe, about 50 people out of every 100,000 of population are incarcerated. The gloabl average for all nations is 144 for each 100,000 of population. The U.S. figure of 716 per 100,000 is about five time higher than the world average and more than ten times higher than other wealthy nations.</p><p dir="ltr">But the U.S. incarceration rate breaks down to 400 out of every 100,000 white Americans and 2,000 per 100,000 for blacks, Uggen said.</p><p dir="ltr">In Minneapolis, he said, the annual arrest rate is 227 out of every 1,000 blacks in the population. The white arrest rate is about one tenth of that.</p><p dir="ltr">The good news is that both the crime rate and the incarceration rate are declining in the United States, although the crime rate is falling much faster, he said. The U.S. crime rate has fallen by half over the past 20 years. The rate of what Uggen calls “mass incarceration” is still very high after rising for 40 years has leveled off and now appears to be starting to decline.</p><p dir="ltr">Minnesota is 49th among the 50 states in incarceration rate, Uggen said. But Minnesota is above average in the number of its citizens who are on probation or parole or otherwise under the supervision of the criminal justice system, Uggen said.</p><p dir="ltr">While being out on probation may be much preferable to being in prison, his research shows that being in “supervision” very seriously undermines the chances of getting a job, getting an apartment, receiving public assistance or voting.</p><p dir="ltr">Uggen made reference to his own run-ins with the law as a young man, but said that because of “just and humane discretion” on the part of the authorities, his path to success in life had not been cut off. He expressed hope that similar humane discretion can be shown to more youths who get arrested.</p><p dir="ltr">Uggen is the Distinguished McKnight Professor of Sociology and Law at the University of Minnesota and is leading scholar on the intersection of crime and sociology and especially on the disfranchisement of felons.</p><p dir="ltr">Also on the panel was Ramsey County District Judge Leonardo Castro, whose pre-judicial work was as a public defender, including a stint as chief public defender in Hennepin County.</p><p dir="ltr">Unlike Uggen, Castro did not come armed with statistics, so he told anecdotes that captured some of the vagaries of arrests and sentences. For example, he compared two recent cases, one in which a drunk driver caused an accident that led to four deaths, and another in which a man was convicted of selling 10 grams of cocaine. The driver was sentenced to 48 months in prison; the drug pusher got 86 months. Looking at the impact of the two crimes, he wondered, “How do we make those decisions?”</p><p dir="ltr">He told of Somali-American juror he met recently who told him that he used to get pulled over by police frequently until he got rid of his ratty old car and bought a much nicer new one. The police incidents stopped.</p><p dir="ltr">The panel was moderated by KARE-TV reporter John Croman, who mused about the politics of crime and punishment. “You never hear anyone at the Legislature saying ‘I want to make sentences shorter for this crime or that one,’” he said. The political incentive is all to make sentences longer.</p><p>The event, titled “Get Smart on Crime: New Directions in America’s Incarceration Policy,” and subtitled “After Ferguson — Building Trust between the criminal justice system and communities of color,” was put on by the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance.</p><p>Note: <em>The comparison of U.S. incarceration rates with the global average and with other developed nations has been revised from an earlier version of this post to clarify and add some data that Uggen supplied later Thursday.</em></p><p></p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/us-out-line-among-developed-nations-portion-population-imprisoned#commentsMinneapolisNationWorldGeographyPoliticsUrban AffairsINNThu, 11 Dec 2014 20:27:20 +0000Eric Black90330 at http://www.minnpost.comThe real journalistic question of Pointergatehttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/real-journalistic-question-pointergate
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/40yrYfv6tKA?rel=0" width="640"></iframe><span class="caption">Video of last night's public forum courtesy of <a href="http://theuptake.org/" target="_blank">the UpTake</a>.</span></p><p dir="ltr">The brouhaha over the so-called Pointergate story has mostly blown over, but the local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists put on a panel Monday night to explain why they had <a href="http://www.mnspj.org/2014/11/19/spj-calls-on-kstp-to-disavow-pointergate-story/">publicly criticized KSTP’s handling of the story.</a> Both KSTP and Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges declined to participate, which would have made it a lot bigger deal. Most of the discussion, like much of the long-running social media traffic, revolved around the racial angles of the story.</p><p dir="ltr">But for me, the actual journalistic question was answered clearly by one of the SPJ panelists, Duchesne Drew, managing editor for operations of the Star Tribune. The Strib had been approached by whoever was peddling the story and decided to pass. As a news story, <em>if you don’t believe that Hodges was knowingly flashing a gang sign, then there is no story,</em> Drew said.</p><p dir="ltr">Everything else that has blown up around this instance of journalistic malpractice by KSTP should keep coming back to that question. It’s hard to believe that anyone could believe that this common pointing-at-each-other photo pose is evidence that whoever is pointing is showing solidarity with a particular gang who might also use a finger-pointing sign.</p><p dir="ltr">KSTP, which has aggressively defended the story, has never actually said that they believe this to be so, only that their police sources say it is so. In his <a href="http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/tv/282657861.html">courageous but nonetheless ill-advised public appearance at Augsburg College to defend the story</a>, KSTP owner Stanley Hubbard fell back on a tired old journalistic trope that we-didn’t-didn’t-say-it-was-a-fact-but-it’s-a-fact-that-some-police-said-it-was-a-fact.</p><p dir="ltr">In the long original Pointergate story itself, a retired policeman asserted on camera that it was a gang sign and that the public was endangered by the mayor showing solidarity with a gang. And the president of the Minneapolis police union also went on camera to state that the incident raises the question about the mayor: “Is she gonna support gangs in this city or cops?”</p><p dir="ltr">Yikes. That would be a powerful question for anyone who believed that the mayor was knowingly flashing a gang sign. But, as Drew suggested, there is no evidence for that. And in the absence of any such evidence, what KSTP had (and the Strib also had but declined to pursue) was either a non-story or a powerful piece of evidence of just how bad relations must be between the mayor and some elements of the police force for whom the union president is a spokesman.</p><p>The latter might make an interesting story.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/real-journalistic-question-pointergate#commentsMediaMinneapolisBusinessGeographyPoliticsUrban AffairsINNBetsy HodgesKSTPPointergateTue, 09 Dec 2014 16:31:36 +0000Eric Black90285 at http://www.minnpost.comRepublicans face serious barriers to holding U.S. Senate majority in 2016http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/republicans-face-serious-barriers-holding-us-senate-majority-2016
<p dir="ltr">Forgive me in advance for even thinking about, let alone writing about, the next election already. But for those who can’t help themselves, it might be worth noting that the next round of federal elections will provide Democrats with a playing field that makes it very likely they will take back much of the ground they just lost in the U.S. Senate, with a decent possibility that control of the Senate will once again be in play in November 2016. This is mostly about the lineup of seats that will be on the ballot, but also several other factors, all of which are serious barriers to Republicans holding their just-won 54-46 majority.</p><p dir="ltr">You know this but don’t always think about it: Our bizarre system of staggered Senate terms (there’s little in the rest of the world that resembles this feature) means that one third (give or take) of the Senate seats come up for election or reelection every two years. The success of one party or the other in winning overall control of the Senate depends very strongly on which seats come up in which year.</p><p dir="ltr">You’ve read or heard it said a million times heading into the 2014 cycle that that quirk of our system created a very favorable playing field for Republicans in the Senate elections. Of the 36 seats that were on the ballot (a couple of extras because of special extras necessitated by deaths or retirements), Democrats had to defend 21 seats, the Republicans just 15. Although incumbency is generally an advantage, in this context, every Senate seat on the ballot represents a pick-up opportunity for the other party. So the Repubs entered 2014 with considerably more potential pick-up opportunities.</p><p dir="ltr">It was also the sixth-year of President Obama’s tenure, and the politically obsessed believe (with plenty of support for this belief in recent history) that the midterm of a president’s second term is very hazardous for the president’s party. Midterms are also, always, low-turnout elections and there is a growing body of evidence that low-turnout elections favor Republicans, who seem to have more support among the demographic groups that tend to turn out most reliably.</p><p dir="ltr">The particular feature of the 2014 Senate field that gave great fodder for analysis — and it indeed turned out to be huge — is that the Democrats had to defend seven Senate seats that they held in states that Mitt Romney had won in 2012. And six of these seven states had been routs that Romney carried by margins of 10 percentage points or more (and three where Romney’s margin was greater than 20).</p><p dir="ltr">In fact, the Republicans did pick up all seven of those seats, constituting the greatest part of the nine-Senate-seat pickup that gave them their new majority.</p><p dir="ltr">Looking ridiculously far ahead at the map for 2016, every one of these elements is not only reversed but totally reversed.</p><p dir="ltr">In 2016 (and leaving open the possibility that the Senate race map might expand via death or retirements):</p><ul><li>Thirty-four seats are on the ballot, 24 of them currently held by Republicans, just 10 by Democrats, a much more lopsided starting point of pick-up opportunities than the one Republicans enjoyed this year.</li></ul><ul><li>Of the 10 states that have races featuring Dem incumbents, not a single one was carried by the Republican presidential nominee in either of the last two elections. None of them were even particularly close. Two of them (Nevada and Colorado) were carried by Obama with margins of 5-10 percentage points, the rest were carried both times by the Dem ticket by at least 10 points and several of them are among the safest of blue states which Obama carried twice by more than 20 points.</li></ul><ul><li>In 2016, the Republicans will have to defend 24 seats and seven of those are in states that Obama carried in both 2008 and 2012. Many of those are states that were considered to be in play in those presidential elections, a few are more reliably blue in presidential elections. There is, of course, no iron law of politics that a state that is dominated by one party in presidential elections cannot elect and reelect a popular senator from the other party. Minnesota has been among the most reliably blue states in presidential elections going back to the FDR era, but it has nonetheless elected and reelected many Republicans to the U.S. Senate. But this trick of a “wrong-party” senator staying popular in a state that leans the other way is getting harder to pull off. It certainly was hard for Dem senators in red states this year.</li></ul><ul><li>2016 will be a presidential election year. President Obama will not be on the ballot but that may not stop Republicans from running against him. It is not the case that Democrats always pick up Senate seats in presidential election years, but it is virtually an iron law of U.S. turnout that voter participation will be up, roughly 20 percentage points, over the midterm turnout, which generally favors Dems and which at the very least means a substantially changed group of voters will be deciding the next round of Senate races.</li></ul><p dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.periodicalpress.senate.gov/reelection-2016/">This link</a> will get you the list of 34 states that will have Senate races in 2016, and the current incumbents (although some of them may not run for another term. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, will be 83 on Election Day 2016. Barbara Mikulski, D-Maryland, will be 80.) Barring the unforeseen, Minnesota will have no Senate race in 2016. Ron Johnson in next-door Wisconsin will likely get a strong challenge.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/republicans-face-serious-barriers-holding-us-senate-majority-2016#commentsBarack ObamaCongressNationElection 2014GeographyPoliticsHistoryINNelection 2016Mitt RomneyMon, 08 Dec 2014 16:37:51 +0000Eric Black90270 at http://www.minnpost.comThe new solid Southhttp://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/new-solid-south
<p>Writing for the New York Times' <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/05/upshot/demise-of-the-southern-democrat-is-now-nearly-compete.html?abt=0002&amp;abg=0&amp;_r=0">The Upshot, Nate Cohn drapes an impressive fever chart over his review </a>of the demise of Democratic fortunes in the South.</p><p>In 1960, Democrats held every U.S. Senate seat, every governor's mansion and control of both houses in every legislature in the combined states of South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee. And that one-party domination had been pretty much continuous since Reconstruction.</p><p>If, as expected, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu loses the runoff in Louisiana Saturday, Republicans will control all of those offices in all of those states. The transition has been sharp and steady. Cohn does a great summary of how it happened and why. Landrieu, Mark Pryor in Arkansas and Michelle Nunn in Georgia represented the last few cases of candidates who came from families with once-popular names and who were still able to survive as Democrats. But until history decides what it is going to do next, that tale is told. The old blue solid South is now the new red solid South.</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/new-solid-south#commentsCongressNationElection 2014GeographyPoliticsHistoryINNFri, 05 Dec 2014 16:48:47 +0000Eric Black90255 at http://www.minnpost.comChris Rock: 'If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets.'http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/chris-rock-if-poor-people-knew-how-rich-rich-people-are-there-would-be-riots-
<p>Writing for New York magazine, Frank Rich interviews Chris Rock. If you <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2014/11/chris-rock-frank-rich-in-conversation.html">read the whole thing,</a> your estimation of Rock as a social critic and political analyst will rise, and, of course, he's kinda funny too, but edgy funny. Here are a few highlights:</p><p>Rich asks Rock whether income inequality is "the elephant in the room."</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Rock Replies:</strong> "Oh, people don’t even know. If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets."</p><p>Rich asks what Rock thinks about Barack Obama as president, hinting that "there’s a sense among his supporters of disappointment, that he’s disengaged..."</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Rock:</strong> "I’m trying to figure out the right analogy. Everybody wanted Michael Jordan, right? We got Shaq. That’s not a disappointment. You know what I mean? We got Charles Barkley. It’s still a Hall of Fame career. The president should be graded on jobs and peace, and the other stuff is debatable. Do more people have jobs, and is there more peace? I guess there’s a little more peace. Not as much peace as we’d like, but I mean, that’s kind of the gig. I don’t recall anybody leaving on an up. It’s just that kind of job. I mean, the liberals that are against him feel let down because he’s not Bush. And the thing about George Bush is that the kid revolutionized the presidency. How? He was the first president who only served the people who voted for him. He literally operated like a cable network. You know what I mean?</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong></strong>"...He’s the first cable-television president, and the thing liberals don’t like about Obama is that he’s a network guy. He’s kind of [long-time CBS chief] <span class="footnoteLink">Les Moonves.<span class="footnoteNumber"></span><span class="footnote"></span></span> He’s trying to get everybody. And I think he’s figured out, and maybe a little late, that there’s some people he’s never going to get."</p><p>On Obama as opposed to George W. Bush:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Rock:</strong> "There’s an advantage that Bush had that Obama doesn’t have. People thinking you’re dumb is an advantage. Obama started as a genius. It’s like, <i>What? I’ve got to keep doing that? That’s hard to do!</i> So it’s not that Obama’s disappointing. It’s just his best album might have been his first album."</p><p>On the improvement of life in America for blacks:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Rock</strong>: "I’m more optimistic than you, but maybe it’s because I live the way I do. I just have a great life, so it’s easier for me to say things are great. But not even me. My brothers drive trucks and stock shelves. They live in a much better world than my father did. My mother tells stories of growing up in Andrews, South Carolina, and the black people had to go to the vet to get their teeth pulled out. And you still had to go to the back door, because if the white people knew the vet had used his instruments on black people, they wouldn’t take their pets to the vet. This is not some person I read about. This is my mother."</p><p>Comparing how fast the progress for gay rights has been compared to black civil rights:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Rock:</strong> "I always call Ellen DeGeneres the gay Rosa Parks. If Rosa Parks had one of the most popular daytime TV shows, I’m sure the civil-rights movement would’ve moved a little bit faster too."</p><p>On why we shouldn't use the terms "race relations" or "racial progress":</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Rock:</strong> "Here’s the thing. When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it’s all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they’re not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before....</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"So, to say Obama is progress is saying that he’s the first black person that is qualified to be president. That’s not black progress. That’s white progress. There’s been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years. If you saw Tina Turner and Ike having a lovely breakfast over there, would you say their relationship’s improved? Some people would. But a smart person would go, 'Oh, he stopped punching her in the face.' It’s not up to her. Ike and Tina Turner’s relationship has nothing to do with Tina Turner. Nothing. It just doesn’t. The question is, you know, my kids are smart, educated, beautiful, polite children. There have been smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children for hundreds of years. The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Let’s hope America keeps producing nicer white people."</p><p>Forgiving Bill Clinton for going after Obama during the 2008 campaign for the Dem nomination:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Rock:</strong> "He’s a dick, but you’re talking about a guy who’s embarrassed his wife. So he had a choice, and I couldn’t judge him. I had to choose between pissing off all the black people in the world or having my wife mad at me? Then the hell with the black people, because he doesn’t live with all the black people. He lives with his wife."</p>http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/12/chris-rock-if-poor-people-knew-how-rich-rich-people-are-there-would-be-riots-#commentsBarack ObamaPovertyMediaNationBusinessGeographyPoliticsUrban AffairsINNBill ClintonChris RockGeorge W. BushThu, 04 Dec 2014 15:48:10 +0000Eric Black90225 at http://www.minnpost.com